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The Professor
By Lauren Nossett
Published by Pan Macmillan
ISBN 9781761268229
I grew up reading English literature, but in the first few sentences of this book, I encountered a number of American words and realised the language of our American cousins is just so different.
However, that did not deter me from getting involved in the story, which is an interesting, thrilling detective novel. Nossett's writing is wonderfully descriptive, although some of her metaphors and similes are a bit long at times.
The story is based around a 'disgraced' Athens, Georgia police detective, Markitt Kaplan, who resigned after a case she was working on went awry, leaving her face, head and body scarred by a house fire, which was lit by one of the culprits.
Her mother, Helena, is a professor of German, who contacted Markitt to investigate and clear the name of her colleague, another professor of German, Verena. Verena had been taken into custody after one of her students, Ethan, was found dead, possibly suicide, possibly suspicious.
It gets a little confusing near the beginning of the book, where the author named a chapter simply as "Her".
This chapter delves into the history of, I presumed, Markitt. She gives a vivid account of her early life in Germany with a German mother and a Turkish father. Thanks to the trauma of living in a small town with people who gossip about her parents' relationship, her father left and returned to Turkey because he cannot live with the gossip. She decided to emigrate to America.
I only realised, at the end of the chapter, that this is the bio of Verena, after reading the very last word in the chapter, "Ethan". Nossett periodically continues to use the chapter names, "Her" and "Him", although later she changes the character to whom the chapter refers.
The story moves on a pace, with Kaplan working 'under cover' sandwiched between the possible suspects and one of her ex-colleagues who has noticed her 'hanging around' the University. She has been contacting Ethan's classmates to get a better understanding of the situation leading up to his death.
As she scrutinises the apartment block where Ethan was living and died, trying to find a way in, she noticed that there was a notice in the window that Ethan's flatmates were looking for a mid-term lodger.
She applied and, after the paperwork was processed, she was asked to move in. She found that she was moving into Ethan's old room and sleeping on the bed where he was found dead.
She continued her investigations, speaking to Verena, who had been suspended from University, and others who were in that faculty, as well as gingerly approaching the subject with her roommates, and working with her ex-colleague. After a month of living there, very slowly getting to know more about what had happened and putting all the pieces of the jigsaw together, she made a decision that it wasn't suicide and she realised who the murderer was.
I found the story was riveting and the descriptive writing made it easy to picture the surroundings and the people in each scene.
While this The Professor has been have available to the Australian market, it could have edited it to make it easier for the Australian reader as the language is American centric. The nouns, many of which have different meanings, as well as the use of the incorrect prepositions or, indeed, a lack of a preposition, hindered reading this book as several sentences had to be re-read. The author writes in the present tense, singular.
As a proofreader I found a proofreading error. The word 'that' has been duplicated, so it reads 'that that' in a sentence where it dies not make sense. If you purchase this book, using one of the links below, I challenge you to find this mistake. I'm sure you will.
Review by Ken C,
About the author
Lauren Nossett is a professor turned novelist with a Ph.D. in German literature. Her debut, The Resemblance, won the ITW Thriller Award for Best First Novel. She currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
This is independent review, I am not paid by the book publishers, so.If you Liked this review - Buy me a coffee
