Shades of Grey (Dulcie Schwartz) - Hardcover

Clea Simon worked as a journalist and non-fiction author before turning to crime (fiction). Best known for her series of cozy mysteries starring cat-lover Theda Krakow, Clea Simon grew up in New York, before moving to Massachusetts to attend Harvard. She fell in love with the area and now lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, with her husband and their cat, Musetta.

Twentysomething Dulcie Schwartz is a doctoral student at Harvard, struggling to find a thesis topic, mourning her recently deceased cat Mr. Grey, and working a summer temp job. Then, one afternoon, she thinks she sees Mr. Grey and believes he warns her not to go home. When she enters her apartment, she finds her despised subletter dead with her knife in his chest. Mr. Grey, Dulcie's mother informs her, is her spirit guide; that's fortunate because Dulcie could certainly use extraterrestrial help, seeing as she finds herself suspected of both murder and hacking into her computer system at work. Well paced and tightly plotted, Shades of Grey debuts a promising series from the author of the Theda Krakow mysteries (Probable Claws, 2009). With scholar Dulcie as the main character, and most of the action taking place on the Harvard campus and inside the Widener Library, it should appeal to a wide audience, including fans of both cat cozies and fiction that uses an academic frame story (Lauren Willig's The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, 2005). --Booklist, 1st August 2009

You're without a definitive idea for a thesis, you've had to have your beloved cat put down, you're working temporarily in a corporate snakepit, you've discovered your temporary roommate's murdered body -- and you're suspected of killing him. Grad students' lives aren't generally this complicated, but Clea Simon makes it all work in Shades of Grey (216 pages, Severn House, $28.95), the first in her projected series featuring Dulcie Schwartz. The author of four books featuring Cambridge, Mass., rock journalist Theda Krakow, Simon steps boldly onto a new path with Harvard student Dulcie. And though this is a fine whodunit, it's not just another mystery. Simon gives it a hint of the supernatural -- Dulcie thinks the spirit of her late cat, Mr. Grey, is trying to warn and protect her -- as well as subplots involving hacked computers and Gothic novels. Dulcie's an intriguing and sympathetic lead character, Simon's plot is well-conceived and the feline angle satisfies without being overplayed. And "Shades of Grey" reminds us that our pets are never gone from our hearts. Give this one a blue ribbon. --Richmond Times-Dispatch, Sept. 27, 2009