THE PROFESSOR

When a promising student at the University of Georgia is found dead, a former detective searches for answers: Do all the fingers point at his professor, the start of a witch hunt, or the path to the truth?

Marlitt Kaplan has been itching to solve a case. For months, she’s been a pariah to the Athens PD after she refused to play by the rules while investigating a fraternity, resigned in disgrace, and damaged her relationship with her former partner and closest friend, Teddy. The whispers about her “assaulting a fraternity member” or having a “gender-coded psychotic break” only added fuel to the fire—literally: Someone broke into her house and set it ablaze. Now she’s living with her parents and bored senseless. That is, until the Athens PD takes Professor Verena Sobek into the station for questioning. Verena’s student Ethan Haddock was discovered dead from an apparent suicide, and rumors are flying that he and Verena had been sleeping together. Verena's facing a Title IX investigation, and Marlitt’s mother, her colleague in the German Department, begs her daughter to prove Verena’s innocence. Marlitt’s unease about working on behalf of an accused professor is no match for her desire to investigate again, so she steps into Ethan's world. Soon, she discovers that her secret wish that the case had been a murder investigation may be coming true. Family secrets, rocky romances, a potentially rogue officer, and vindictive students teem in Nossett’s sophomore novel. Despite a few opening chapters weighed down by exposition, the novel succeeds as a page-turning mystery full of potential suspects, exciting twists, and a few red herrings. Nossett adeptly uses narrative structure to play with readers’ expectations and crafts a mystery that sits in that sweet spot: dropping just enough clues so readers can investigate alongside Marlitt, but not so many that the ending feels predictable. She handles the premise of a former detective trying to prove the innocence of an accused abuser with care. It is no small feat to transform a potentially problematic, black-and-white plot into a thoughtful investigation of the ways academic power structures (and those of law enforcement) fail individuals, but Nossett pulls it off.

Come for the entertaining, well-crafted mystery, stay for the thoughtful critique of academia.