From Publishers Weekly
Summertime and the living's uneasy for levelheaded English teacher Amanda Pepper (last seen in How I Spent My Summer Vacation). Not only has she reached a crossroads in her relationship with Philadelphia cop C.K. Mackenzie, but she has also been sentenced to teaching summer school at Philly Prep, where a series of assaults against minority students and faculty starts the session off badly. A black teacher's classroom is vandalized in an act that's clearly racially motivated; a Vietnamese boy is murdered in a drive-by shooting in front of the school; and Amanda's favorite student, April Tuong, disappears. As the number of incidents increases (eventually striking the English teacher, too), Amanda becomes convinced that the missing girl and the attacks are related, and that the culprit is connected with the school. Aside from a few instances of stiff dialogue, this outing is full of pleasures as the literate sleuth runs up against some all-American racists. The Anthony Award-winning Roberts gives Amanda an appealingly dry wit-perfectly suited for taking on bureaucratized political correctness and describing what it's like to stand in front of a roomful of less than motivated teenagers. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book 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
"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

ANNOTATION

A new whodunit starring English teacher/sleuth Amanda Pepper, from the Anthony Award-winning author of How I Spent My Summer Vacation. As Amanda gears up for summer school at exclusive Philly Prep, a series of extracurricular crimes--including a fatal drive-by shooting and the kidnapping of a coed--takes her out of the classroom and into the streets to investigate.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Mellow old Philadelphia, where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have flourished for centuries, now has a new claim to fame. The City of Brotherly Love has been proclaimed number one in the nation ... for hostility. English teacher Amanda Pepper, crabbily gearing up for summer school at exclusive Philly Prep, feels she fits right in with the hostility mode. And it's going to get worse. Amanda gets her first prickling of unease in her own classroom, where 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.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Summertime and the living's uneasy for levelheaded English teacher Amanda Pepper (last seen in How I Spent My Summer Vacation). Not only has she reached a crossroads in her relationship with Philadelphia cop C.K. Mackenzie, but she has also been sentenced to teaching summer school at Philly Prep, where a series of assaults against minority students and faculty starts the session off badly. A black teacher's classroom is vandalized in an act that's clearly racially motivated; a Vietnamese boy is murdered in a drive-by shooting in front of the school; and Amanda's favorite student, April Tuong, disappears. As the number of incidents increases (eventually striking the English teacher, too), Amanda becomes convinced that the missing girl and the attacks are related, and that the culprit is connected with the school. Aside from a few instances of stiff dialogue, this outing is full of pleasures as the literate sleuth runs up against some all-American racists. The Anthony Award-winning Roberts gives Amanda an appealingly dry wit-perfectly suited for taking on bureaucratized political correctness and describing what it's like to stand in front of a roomful of less than motivated teenagers. (Sept.)

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