In the Dead of Summer [Paperback] Gillian Roberts

Product Description "FULL OF PLEASURES . . . Roberts gives Amanda an appealingly dry wit." --Publishers Weekly While teaching summer school at exclusive Philly Prep, English teacher Amanda Pepper feels a sense of foreboding. First, a reading of Romeo and Juliet activates some very strange chemistry. Then the computer science teacher begins receiving anonymous go-back-to-Africa phone calls. A young Vietnamese boy dies in a drive-by shooting. And late one night, outside a Chinatown massage parlor, student April Tuong is kidnapped. Random violence? Perhaps. But Amanda refuses to let gentle April vanish without at least asking a few questions, starting in her own classroom. Yet the truth, when she finds it, is appalling, deadly, and much too close to home. . . . "Tart-tongued, warm-hearted Amanda's fifth case is as engaging as her others, and here she gets to do more detection than usual." --Kirkus Reviews "Gillian Roberts is a mystery reader's dream come true." --Lia Matera From the Publisher Even before I became her editor, starting with her third mystery novel, I was enamored of Gillian Roberts and the Philadelphia-set series she writes about schoolteacher Amanda Pepper. (The author herself was once a schoolteacher in Philadelphia, so she knows whereof she writes.) Gillian's debut, CAUGHT DEAD IN PHILADELPHIA, justly won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel. And subsequent installments confirmed the promise of that first book. What's special about all the Amanda Pepper novels is Amanda's voice (i.e., Gillian's first-person narration): wry, commonsensical, and with commentary that alternates between compassionate and laugh-aloud funny. Maybe the best way to describe the appeal of Gillian Roberts is to quote another top-echelon crime novelist, Nancy Pickard, who says, "Here's the Dorothy Parker of mystery writers, laughing even when -- especially when -- it hurts, and giving more wit per page than most writers give per book." All I'll add is: don't miss Gillian Roberts! --Joe Blades, Associate Publisher From the Inside Flap F PLEASURES . . . Roberts gives Amanda an appealingly dry wit." --Publishers Weekly While teaching summer school at exclusive Philly Prep, English teacher Amanda Pepper feels a sense of foreboding. First, a reading of Romeo and Juliet activates some very strange chemistry. Then the computer science teacher begins receiving anonymous go-back-to-Africa phone calls. A young Vietnamese boy dies in a drive-by shooting. And late one night, outside a Chinatown massage parlor, student April Tuong is kidnapped. Random violence? Perhaps. But Amanda refuses to let gentle April vanish without at least asking a few questions, starting in her own classroom. Yet the truth, when she finds it, is appalling, deadly, and much too close to home. . . . "Tart-tongued, warm-hearted Amanda's fifth case is as engaging as her others, and here she gets to do more detection than usual." --Kirkus Reviews "Gillian Roberts is a mystery reader's dream come true." --