PhDeath: The Puzzler Murders

Always a good measure of a books merit by how quickly you want to get to the next page - the puzzles were wonderful and very creative. Loved the socratic references as a meta-theme as a satire on some of the inflictions of how we compartmentalize knowledge in academia. I would have enjoyed more philosophical insights and connections to deeper threads which the author clearly has deep fluency in. I think the format of a fiction to share deeper philosophical truths is a good medium for Carse as it was with Pirsig's ZMM and Lila. I hope he writes another as he has a lot more to say on the ineffable.

James Carse is not only an extremely intelligent writer, but he is also very clever. Reading this whodunit mystery is like taking a course in Greek philosophy while struggling to figure out the clues that Carse drops along the way. As a former college professor, I found the academic in-fighting and jealousies to be particularly amusing, and unnerving. These are taken to an extreme in this book, but certainly I could relate to the various ways petty (and not-so petty) squabbles can blow up. And certainly this kept me kept wondering who would be the next victim of this very audacious and relentless killer. Truly, from the first page, I was hooked. Full of surprises and suspense, the novel is really a winner.

Did anyone proofread this book before it went to print? The typos are distracting. And when I hit the mangled beginning of Chapter 15 (I spent several minutes trying to figure out what had gone wrong), I gave up. If neither the author nor the publisher cared enough to catch these errors, I don't care enough to finish the book. Disappointing from a respected academic who surely knows how to make a published work look professional.

Uninteresting, pompous and poorly edited. Pages misplaced. No character development, story not compelling. Very disappointed. Was looking forward to reading after hearing interview on the radio, thought the puzzles would be fun. But wanted to be engaged in the story to desire the mystery of the puzzles and I am not. Still reading but just came across a missing page and found it so ridiculous came here to read reviews and here I am...

a treat for gaming intellects!

PhDeath: The Puzzler Murders by James P. Carse is a fictional mystery taking place at a university in New York. Mr. Carse is a university professor himself.This is a very smart murder mystery. The plot keeps on moving forward and Mr. Carse does not underestimate his audience, writing in rich language and assuming the reader knows what he’s talking about (or, at least, can use an Internet search engine).The murdered, known only as The Puzzler, sends 10 puzzles to the same university, each puzzle will disclose the name of the professor who is next in line to die. A committee chaired by Prof. Carmody is tasked with solving these puzzles before the next murder. The group gets lots of help, from grade school math teachers to Noble Laureates in solving those puzzles and getting to the murderer.This book took me a little longer than usual to read because I had a great time trying (emphasis on “trying”) to solve the puzzles, which come in a form of lists (10 each, a pattern repeating itself throughout the book). The first three puzzles I had some luck and one or two of the last ones, but some I had no idea where to even start – all part of the fun.The social commentary the author provided, being a university professor, was also well worth reading. I’m glad someone in education feels the way he does and that maybe there is some way we can correct the issues.

The book is erudite and pretty stuffy, but poorly edited and produced - typos, half sentences, repeated phrases.It's also inconsistent - while set in modern times (Bernie Sanders visits campus), important puzzle clues could have been found by anyone with access to Google. (I checked on a couple). Instead, the story made it seem as if only academics could know the answers.Finally, spending a huge portion of the book (25% or more of the pages) "wrapping things up" - explaining to me why the murders were committed (which I could mostly guess for myself) was tedious.Sorry, but I didn't like it.

Problem free