Long Knives

Attorney Rosenberg puts his professional expertise to good use in this tale of academic infighting and legal intrigue, the sequel to 2011’s Death on a High Floor. Jenna James has traded a career in corporate law for a tenure-track position as a law professor at UCLA. Her assured ascent to the lofty peaks of academic job security hits a road bump when Primo Giordano, a student with an implausible story about lost treasure, dies after drinking poisoned coffee in James’s office. James becomes a suspect and must also contend with a spiteful colleague capitalizing on the death to sabotage her bid for tenure, as well as a series of suspicious accidents. Was Primo the intended victim of the poison—or was it James? She turns to an assortment of allies, from the dead boy’s ex-girlfriend to a former murder defendant, for answers. While the prose is at best serviceable, the intertwined mysteries at the book’s core neatly combine the entertainingly sordid and the believably absurd. Agent: Erica Silverman, Trident Media Group. (Apr.)