When a young female co-ed falls victim to a vicious killer on a small Midwestern campus, the local authorities find themselves stumped as to whom the culprit is.
The victim’s parents, no longer capable of waiting for answers from the police, turn to the their daughter’s former psychology professor, Tom Evers, to solve the crime. Reluctantly, Evers joins the case out of respect for his former student and teaching assistant, believing his inside status on the campus and training in psychology will give him an edge over qualified detectives.
This is the unlikely premise behind Richard Kelly’s new murder mystery book, “A Blood Stained Ivory Tower.”
“Tower” is narrated from the perspective of Evers, who is young and unknown on the college campus. It has been months since his star student and teaching assistant, Whitney Richardson’s body was found mutilated and molested in a drainage ditch. After Richardson’s parents turn to Evers, he begins snooping around campus, asking questions and – surprising himself – turning up leads.
Soon another body is found and then a third near Evers’ home. Evers puts himself in increasing danger as he attempts to catch the killer before he strikes again.
Unfortunately, as thrilling as this plot sounds, “Tower” suffers at the hands of Kelly. It is no coincidence the story’s protagonist is a psychologist – Kelly holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. Creating a story in which psychologists are crime fighters might have been fun for Kelly, but it is not for readers.
Kelly would have the reader believe a degree in psychology puts Evers at an advantage over trained police officers with years of investigating and interviewing experience. If readers are able to suspend their disbelief and go along with this assumption, Kelly never fully demonstrates why Evers is able to solve the crime. His approach to interviewing the suspects is no different than that of the police.
With training in psychology, Kelly seems unable to sustain a 219-page work of fiction. Relying too much on dialogue as his means for exposition, Kelly’s dialogues lack any sense of believability.
He moves between paragraphs and between ideas without transitions. His narratives rarely provide useful thought into his characters or their actions and instead gives useless information such as exactly what each character eats and drinks. The characters in “Tower” eat approximately 20 times, and each time the reader is treated to a shopping list of what is on the characters’ plates. It is unnecessary details such as these and a lack of action throughout the book’s first 200 pages that significantly slow the book down.
The reader must follow as Evers plugs along at cracking the murders. Unfortunately his detective skills are somewhat lacking and the reader must watch as he moves in circles. When information is disclosed that is of interest to Evers, it is unclear why it is important to the cases.
Kelly seems to have difficulty piecing each of his 47 chapters together to form any rising action throughout, and all the information and clues of the story are tossed aside at the end for a Scooby Doo-style ending, leaving the reader feeling as though they have been cheated.
“A Blood Stained Ivory Tower” is a story awash in typos, poor dialogue and grammar, weak characters and a weaker storyline.
The reader is promised a campus murder mystery, but is left with a psychologist’s experiment in novel writing.
