An obnoxious English professor strangled with his own necktie falls out of a closet and into the arms of assistant professor Karen Pelletier in the eventful first chapter of Joanne Dobson's Quieter than Sleep. The murder seems linked to the work of Emily Dickinson, and the bemused Pilletier is enlisted by Lieutenant Piotrowski -- memorably described as "Father Christmas with a bad wardrobe and an attitude" -- to assist in finding the culprit. Dobson, an associate professor of English at Fordham University, displays a deft and witty touch for academic skullduggery in her first novel, with echoes of A. S. Byatt's Possession.

-Elizabeth Foxwell