I think they're worth a try. The plots per se are occasionally a little slight, but the characters and dialogue are great. I also like the way that, if if there is to be a death at all, it often takes its time in arriving. The amateur is a professor of English at a university in New York City, never named -- but Carolyn Heilbrun, the actual name of the author, taught at Columbia. Professors, universities, and literature all come in for skewering, but one of the things I like about the books is that one gets to sit in quite a different bath of assumptions than with, for example, the Nero Wolfe books.

The first one is The James Joyce Murder, which contains several scenes I still can't read without falling over laughing.

The first one takes place in the late sixties and contains some remarks that will really set your teeth on edge, but the books grow up with the author, and she starts in a better place than, say, Rendell.

We can lend them if the library is deficient.

P.