An Act of Murder * Mary Angela * Professor Prather Mystery #1

A Fatal Opening Night Puts an Academic in the Killer's Spotlight. Professor Emmeline Prather expects nothing more than a night of classic drama when she attends the opening performance of the local community theater production in Copper Bluff, South Dakota. But the theatrical illusions violently shatter when the play's leading man drinks from a prop goblet, collapses on stage, and dies in front of the horrified audience.

When the local police bureau rules the death a cold-blooded poisoning and arrests one of Emmeline’s favorite English department colleagues, the campus falls into an immediate structural crisis. Refusing to let an innocent man take the fall, the hyper-vigilant literature professor launches her own parallel tracking operation. Fusing traditional golden-age puzzle mechanics with witty academic satire and short, fast-paced chapters, this engaging series starter tracks a brilliant academic racing to decode a killer's script before the curtain drops permanently on her own life.