A Darker Shade Of Crimson (Ivy League Mysteries)

Description

Being young, gifted, and black at Harvard has never been easy. For Ella Fisher, outspoken and controversial Dean of Students at Harvard Law School, it was murder.

After Nikki Chase -- a smart, ambitious, attractive black economics professor -- stumbles over her friend Ella's body during a blackout in a classroom building, she finds herself plunged into the investigation of her death. In the process she uncovers some of Harvard's most deeply buried secrets.

Nikki learns that plenty of people could have wanted Ella dead. There's the debonair -- and married -- new Harvard president Leo Barrett. Many thought Leo and Ella were lovers, and now he's looking awfully guilty. The Chairman of the Economics Department suddenly, suspiciously, has a lot of money. And Ella's radical, Afrocentric ex-husband had apparently been blackmailing her.

With the help of Ella's two true friends, Nikki sets out to unravel the mystery -- and the complications of her own love life. Proving that love can be murder, she drives toward the shocking conclusion that will turn all of Harvard on its ear.

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In her debut outing as a mystery novelist, Pamela Thomas-Graham introduces the world to a delightful and exciting amateur female detective, Nikki Chase. At 30, Nikki has already eschewed a career on Wall Street to become a professor of economics at Harvard, her alma mater. She is brilliant, beautiful, ambitious, and black--a characteristic Thomas-Graham makes clear from the get-go. "Being young and black at Harvard requires advanced survival skills," she writes. "Seven generations of us have found it exhilarating, perplexing, difficult, and dangerous. For Rosezella Maynette Fisher, it was murder."

When Rosezella, Harvard's most powerful black woman and Nikki's good friend, dies mysteriously on the eve of a new school year, Nikki finds herself compelled to track down all the clues leading to the killer. A cast of richly drawn and complex characters helps and hinders her quest. For advice, she turns occasionally to Raphael Griffin, a cop who has traded the bougainvillea of the British Virgin Islands for the ivy of Harvard Yard. For moral support, she turns to Maggie Daily, a teacher, landlady, and poet whose rich stories and rolling tones provide the book with texture, history, and charm. Like any other good woman detective, Nikki has a love life as perplexing as the mystery to be solved. Her long-lost ex-boyfriend, Dante Rosario, returns to town, bringing with him more sizzle and spark than Nikki is prepared to handle.

Though it's not as dark and creepy as Paullina Simons's 1996 campus-based mysteryThe Red Leaves, A Darker Shade of Crimson captures all the power, tradition, and atmosphere of the Ivy League campus. And while Thomas-Graham does explore the social and political issues surrounding race at Harvard, she manages to avoid the pitfalls of turning a well-crafted mystery into a polemic. --L.A. Smith

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Customer Reviews

Great Read
So happy I stumbled onto this series...I really enjoyed the story, the discussion about race politics in academe, the romantic strife, and the murder mystery! Author is funny, smart, and the plot had enough twists and turns.

2007-05-07 (Orlando, FL) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Lost me !
When I first happened upon this book by a recommendatiion, becaude I am a lover of mystery/interracial romance novels, so when I read this book I thought I would really enjoy the storyline as well as the romance between Nikki and Dante
Big disapointed on both counts. Hard to follow and as far as a romance for the romance of any kind that was mentioned it could have been left out of the book.

2006-06-09 | Interracial Maverick (Oklahoma City, OK) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 2

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A Good Series
I read the third installment first, then the first and now I'm halfway through the second and so far, this is the better of the three. I love the fact that while the three novels in the series were written and published over a 5 year period, their plots unfold over the course of one fall semester. This plot was great with lots of twists. I even learned a couple of new words as there was at least one new word per chapter. All characters had depth and were well rounded. The only character that was somewhat flat was Dante. I could see why Nikki developed solid friendships with Maggie, Jess and Rafe. I could even see why she disliked but respected her department chair, Ian. But for the life of me I could not understand the love-hate relationship between her and Dante. Every single encounter with him, save the last, brought out the absolute worst in her, with no discernable reason why. I would have given the novel 4 stars were it not for this flaw.

2006-01-05 (New Jersey) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Loved it!
This is a thoughtful, well-written, intelligent murder mystery. That in and of it itself would be good, but then to add a protagonist to whom I could relate so well personally, gives it an extra star!!!

2005-09-22 (Twin Cities, MN) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Wonderful intro to the romance/mystery genre
I checked this book (along w/PTG's other 2) out at my local library. This one wet my appetite for the other 2, but sadly to say...I'm not sure of Yale and Princeton are up the Harvard. Read all of them for yourself and let me know. It is nice to have a Black, female character in this role in higher ed!

2005-06-24 | Miss Mayo (Columbus, OH) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Orange Crushed: An Ivy League Mystery (Ivy League Mysteries)

Description

Pamela Thomas-Graham's beguiling and atmospheric Ivy League novels simmer with hot button issues -- and unveil layers of malice and murder inside the life academic. Harvard economics professor Nikki Chase is intent on becoming the first tenured African-American woman in her department. But with her affinity for solving crimes, she may make her name in a place where the highest levels of human intellect can court the lowest impulses of the human heart.

PUBLISH OR PERISH

A working weekend at a Princeton conference is just what Nikki needs to deflect the pre-holiday pressures -- both professional and personal -- that are closing in on her back in Cambridge. And there will be down time, too, at a party honoring professor Earl Stokes, her old friend and mentor. Rumors abound that Stokes, a Princeton superstar, may depart for Harvard, a change that would stir up as much controversy as his new bestselling book on race issues. When Stokes's body is discovered among the smoldering ruins of the not-yet-completed black-studies building, a shattered Nikki refuses to accept the police findings that the death was accidental. And among the ashes she will uncover a murderous agenda with ominous implications for not only the Princeton campus but Harvard as well.

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Customer Reviews

Okay, still a good read but...
I do have to admit that some of the themes are getting a little played. I did expect Dante and Nikki to be a bit further along and over some of the sophomoric sexual tension, and the "passing" thing is well...enough already. In any case, I still enjoyed it (funny, action mystery, the comedy of the characters in academe all great) and I am looking forward to the next one!

2007-05-06 (Orlando, FL) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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You're Not Missing Anything
It took me a while to get through this book. I kept losing interest and I would just set the book down and pick it up a few days later to continue reading it. So Professor Nikki Chase becomes involved in a 3rd murder mystery. How believable is that? Why not introduce new main characters into the Ivy League Series who solve mysteries? And why does it always have to be murder? Anyway, this "mystery" was too easy to solve. Nikki was always either at the right place at the right time or she would ask suspects numerous questions and they would give her the answers she wanted without any suspicion as to why she was concerned. Nikki's relationship with Dante Rosario is getting old and stale and I see no point in their relationship. I predict the 4th book in this series will be titled "Brown Bomber" and Nikki will again be involved in a 4th murder investigation at Brown University.

2006-07-10 (In Your Dreams) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 2

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Three Strikes and you're out
I am an avid reader of mystery novels, I love them so I know a good read, when I read it, I am a die-hard fan of Judith Smith-Levin, now that's a mystery writer, and many other African-American mystery writers as well, so after I read all three of your books Ms. Thomas-Graham, in my opinion, I did not find your books an enjoyable read, I lost interest quickly. I became bored with the mystery solving as well as the romance part of the book.

2006-06-09 | Interracial Maverick (Oklahoma City, OK) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 2

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Promise unfulfilled
I love mystery books, and I especially love mysteries written by black authors, with black protagonists. I've read everything from Walter Mosely's Easy Rawlins to Valerie Wilson Wesley's Tamara Hayle to Barbara Neely's sleuthing domestic Blanche. I also like to welcome new black writers to the mystery genre, such as Ian Smith (The Blackbird Papers). It was in that spirit I read A Darker Shade of Crimson, the first mystery featuring Pamela Thomas Graham's Harvard professor Nikki Chase. I enjoyed this first effort and thought the Ivy League theme had a lot of promise. While I've yet to read Graham's second installment of the series, Blue Blood, I bought the third book, Orange Crushed, with high expectations. I finished the book this morning, and I have to say I was disappointed. Chase never actually solves the mystery at all. Instead, the rest of the book's characters (including a plethora of minor ones) basically hand her the answers, piece by piece. There is a difference between solving a puzzle and filling in all the boxes correctly because other people gave you the answers. Chase does a lot of guessing, speculating and wondering, but she figures absolutely nothing out for herself. As a result, she comes off as bright and involved, but not particularly perceptive, and hardly worthy of the sleuth designation. Since a double-Harvard, ex-Wall Street executive can hardly be expected to have formal training as a criminal investigator, it is crucial that Chase exhibit some natural talent for deductive reasoning, attention to detail, reading people and problem solving. Yet she spent nearly all of the book having literally no clue of what was really going on around her, even with her own baby brother. Read Neely's Blanche series for a more believable "accidental" detective. Also, there are a number of mistakes that pierce the veil of reality every good book creates. For example, there is a reference to the Houston Oilers in a book ostensibly set in the present, i.e. 2004. The NFL's Houston Oilers ceased to be nearly a decade ago (they are now the Tennessee Titans). Again, I think the murder-in-the- Ivy-League premise brims with promise. However, Orange Crushed falls far short of fulfillment of that potential.

2005-11-22 (West Orange, NJ) | Helpful Votes: 6 | Rating: 2

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Not her Best
I liked this book, but there was something missing in comparison to the other two in this series. Nikki Chase, the lead character, is a professor at Harvard who keeps finding herself in the middle of murder investigations. The first two books in this series made it totally believable that this could happen to her, but by the time you get to the third book and she's involved in another murder mystery, you almost want to roll your eyes. Why does this keep happening to her?

At any rate, I like the characters and some of the book is extremely funny, but I also got sick of how the plot sort of just dragged along. And there were obvious potential clues that she didn't pursue and this was frustrating. Some things she just let slide by. So in a nutshell, this is a good mystery that went unsolved for too long.

2005-01-08 | Theresa (Trenton, NJ) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 3

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Blue Blood (Ivy League Mysteries)

Description

Conservative Yale law professor Amanda Fox lived for controversy and academic celebrity -- until someone decided she should die for them.

For Harvard economics professor Nikki Chase, it starts with a desperate call from her old friend Gary Fox, now a dean at Yale. His wife, Amanda, has been brutally stabbed to death in inner-city New Haven. The police soon arrest one of Amanda's students for the crime, but Nikki's investigation uncovers plenty of potential suspects. There's Max and Jared Fisch, bitterly feuding scions of a powerful right-wing family with as much to hide as it has millions to give Yale. High-profile activist Reverend Leroy Saunders had a wealth of philosophical -- and personal -- scores to settle with Amanda. And there's Gary himself, poised to become Yale's next president, who was on increasingly acrimonious and very public outs with his wife. As a powder keg of racial tension and political maneuverings threatens to ignite, Nikki draws on the help of old and new friends as she trails the real killer -- and deadly truths that will reverberate from Yale's gothic towers through New Haven's toughest streets.

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Customer Reviews

Give it a rest folks....
I read some of the previous reviews and while I can agree that there are some issues--Nikki's point at Yale is somewhat confused and the thing with Dante seems ambiguous and at points frustratingly random, but it was still a good read. Entertaining, funny, and I thought the descriptions about race were spot on.

2007-05-06 (Orlando, FL) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Another Chance
After reading the first Ivy League mystery,(A Darker Shade of Crimson), I was disappointed, but I decided I would give the second book Blue Blood a shot, I am wondering to myself why did you put yourself through this torture of another boring book. I very quickly became bored with the book, and for what was going on with Nikki and Dante' in the first book the way it ended who would have thought thet that their relationship could get even more boring, for these two people there was no romance to speak of a kiss was almost mention, but that's it. So to bring Dante back into Nikki's life after an eight year absence, Pamela Griffin-Thomas could have left him out all together as much romance that was not between them, Nikki should have just stay without someone.

2006-06-09 | Interracial Maverick (Oklahoma City, OK) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

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All the colors of Higher Ed....
I saw this on my list of recommendations and started w/the first one - A Darker Shade of Crimson. Honestly - I'm glad I did. THAT ONE WAS GOOD...a real page turner...a quick read. This one was a little lower on the scale and currently I'm reading "Orange Crushed"...set in (you guessed it) Princeton U. While I appreciate the Black heroine .... I'm not sure if this is going to be a long term series at all I.L. colleges. I mean - realistically ... how many excuses can PTG use to get Nikki to those campuses?

2005-06-24 | Miss Mayo (Columbus, OH) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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Too Many Coincidences
In her first book a Darker Shade of Crimson there was some sense in the story because Nikki Chase was operating in her home environment. This book deals with a murder at Yale of a righr wing law professor. It is hard to understand why Nikki even was around. It also missed the interesting characters from the earlier effort. Nikki's boyfriend Dante is really hard to understand. He appears for no reason

All in all a book that is very hard to believe and is disappointing.

2004-09-06 | manursing (Rye, New York United States) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 2

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Nancy Drew
Nancy Drew meets Quasimodo! Proceed at your own risk if you are over 12 years old or have an IQ over 80. Unless you are stuck at the Mexico City airport like I was and can't find anything else on the shelf. An author with her credentials should know better.

2000-11-19 | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 1

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Biography - Thomas-Graham, Pamela (1963-): An article from: Contemporary Authors Online

Description

Word count: 766.

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Darker Shade of Crimson

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Darker Shade, A - An Ivy League Mystery

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