During the annual Groundhog Day celebrations at Baaclava Agricultural College a body is discovered floating in the pond. Wierdly, it echoes the dress and murder method from a century-old poem Professor Shandy is assigned by the college head to discover the facts behind the strange body and while he is at it also stop a lawsuit against the college alledging that Oozaks Pond does not belong to the college at all.
re-read 4/11/2024 ( )

Balaclava College series, humerous but not much mystery

More hi-jinks at the agricultural college. This time, as the title says, a corpse in the pond. I could not get involved in this story. I read the first four chapters, then the last one and found I wasn't any more interested than I was in the beginning. I think this author isn't for me, but others seem to enjoy her writing a lot. ( )

Start with some ghastly poetry written by a long-dead Buggins, mix the poem with the modern Groundhog Day festival at Balaclava Agricultural College, and Peter Shandy has another mystery to solve. Sadly, it won't be solved before a couple of other murders take place. Relationships, family and otherwise, are at the heart of this mystery.

Expect the usual witty banter and attempts to throw dust in Peter and the readers' eyes.

For fellow Shandy fans who want facts about the characters or just can't recall where they come from:

ch.6: Sieglinde Svenson was Helen Marsh's bridesmaid when she married Peter. Sieglinde also served a smorgasbord with seven different kinds of herring after the ceremony.

ch.8 Chief Ottermole is a Doctor Who fan.

Balaclava Buggins used to go on and on about his plans for an agricultural college in his journals. He kept a diary since he was able to buy his first quire of paper and his mother stitched them into a book for him. Helen considers that book the most precious thing in the Buggins Collection.

The land on which Balaclava founded his college was his only bequest from his father.

ch.13. Grace Porble's brother, Trowbridge the geologist, and his family live in Tacoma, Washington.

Grace's mother keeled over with a stroke when Grace was four.

The college comptroller then was a Mr. Horrigan. He and his wife lived where the Jackmans live now. Mrs. Horrigan smelled the hot fat of the doughnuts Grace's mother was frying and kept the house from catching fire.

Grace boarded with her cousins Trev and Beatrice, whom she called uncle and aunt, until her father remarried. Judith, her stepmother, was more like a governess. Grace's older cousin, Persephone, baby-sat her.

ch16: Persephone's older twin brothers were so bad that her mother sang "God Bless America" when she hung the flag with the gold star on it in the window after one of them was killed in WWII.

Persephone can't see the color red.

Arabella Goulson's Aunt Luanna had the same vision problem.

ch. 19: Peter's father used sit in the rocking chair on their front porch and read Collier's Weekly.

For those who enjoy collecting author errors: The partial Buggins family tree in this book seems to contradict what we learned in the third book. Helen Shandy, listed as the author of the family tree, has Belial Buggins as the son of Abelard Buggins, with Corydon and Ichabod as his older brothers.

In Wrack and Rune Helen told Peter that Belial was the brother of Bedivere, the Buggins who donated the Buggins Collection to the college library. Hilda Horsefall said that Belial and Bedivere were the sons of Balaclava's brother, Bartleby. Bartleby is not listed in the family tree, so he was probably Balaclava's younger brother. Presumably, Bedivere Buggins was really his son. Perhaps Helen found documents that proved that Belial was actually Abelard's son, not Bartleby's. Perhaps Belial had liked to be thought of as the son of a more prosperous Buggins. Who knows?

While the problem of Corydon and Augustus' respective dates of death in the family tree are explained away in Vane Pursuit, the problem of Belial's parentage isn't.

Mark Hess is the artist for the cover with the brown boots and black pants sticking out of a partially iced-over pond with buildings (including a church), a parking lot, a sleigh drawn by golden brown horses instead of Balaclava Black horses, and onlookers.

If you love screwball mysteries, read the whole series. ( )

School Library Journal Review: YA Young adult readers with a lively sense of humor and an appreciation for the fine old family names such as Fortitude Lumpkin will find the latest Peter Shandy mystery to their liking. Balaclava Agriculture College has two problems: the unfortunate discovery of three victims of very foul play and (more importantly) a lawsuit by the greedy heirs of college founder Balaclava Buggins to reclaim part of the college, namely Oozak's Pond. With his usual aplomb and the help of the college community and various bizarre local folk, Professor Shandy solves both problems to the vast enjoyment of readers. Rosemary Smith, Albright Middle School, Houston ( )