A killing spring

Gail Bowen's earlier Joanne Kilbourn mystery, A Colder Kind of Death, won the 1995 Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel. This installment in the series is set on a university campus in Saskatoon, where Joanne teaches political science. The story opens with the death of Reed Gallagher, who ran the School of Journalism. He is found in a shabby rooming house wearing women's underwear, with an electrical cord around his neck, and the police judge it a suicide. Joanne is the one who must tell his wife.

Soon after, vandals wreck the journalism offices, smashing equipment and spraying homophobic slogans across the walls. A journalism student in one of Joanne's classes, a young woman few people like, stops attending after claiming she is being sexually harassed, and Joanne initially doubts her. Joanne's personal life is also unsettled. A stranger's racist remarks come between her and her lover, Inspector Alex Kequahtooway, and her closest friend removes her from the weekly political panel she has appeared on for years on Nationtv.

Shaken, Joanne tries to stay active rather than dwell on her troubles. Looking into why the student has vanished draws her into a campus world of fear, deception and murder.