M Word

by Jane Isenberg

Book Overview

With a sensibility shaped in the sixties and kids born in the seventies, Jersey City community college professor Bel Barrett hit the big five-O in the nineties. The patronage politics of urban academia and the dreams and demands of city students threaten to burn Bel out but it's hot flashes and a fancy fundraiser that really turn the heat on. Before Bel has a chance to do justice to the tempting display of calorie-laden food, her slim and attractive...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380802805
• ISBN13: 9780380802807
• Release Date: March 1999
• Publisher: Avon Books
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Fun Read! Great first mystery!

Jane Isenberg treats us to the world of the community college in THE M WORD - and it's all true...except for the murder, of course! Bel Barrett and her colleagues have to solve the murder of the college's president - even while battling the confusion of hot flashes and mid-life memory crises. A delightful tale well-told!

hot mama sleuth will make you laugh out loud!

Endearingly humorous, Jane Isenberg's first novel is a deliciously fun read. Isenberg succeeds in bringing to life a host of characters who can't resist getting themselves into all kinds of trouble. You'll love reading Bel's witty dialogue with her friends. You'll laugh with (and at) her as she brings you into her bathroom, her bedroom, her classroom, and even her metamorphosing menopausal body. You'll cheer her on and laugh out loud. You might start doing yoga in the middle of the night. This is a brave and hilarious new take on mystery writing. Who knew a menopausal sleuth could be so funny?!

Delightful read with an original sleuth!!

Bel Barrett is a hoot- a hoot from Hoboken no less - who makes menopause seem survivable and NJ seem like a fascinating place where crime pays very well. I am looking forward to the next book in this one of a kind series.

A great and funny read, with characters to revisit!

On every page, I laughed or nodded wryly with recognition of people in my everyday life--only wittier and smarter than the ones I know! Jane Isenberg has created characters whose feelings, motivations and actions strike both a familiar chord and the funny bone. And she has placed them in a fast-paced, intelligent plot that combines individual ambitions and societal realities in a situation mirrored in today's headlines. The fact that her main character is a 50-something woman in the throes of menopausal symptoms is the icing on the cake--would that we all could put our hot flashes and memory lapses to such good use as Bel Barrett does. Set in a multicultural urban and academic milieu, "The M Word" also features savvy, intuitive Latina and African American women who are both real and realistic about the challenges they and their families face. I highly recommend "The M Word" to all mystery lovers, all academics (especially those in community colleges--you might learn something about your own administration politics!) and all mid-life women with a sense of humor about their situation. I hope Bel and comrades will be back soon and often in other cleverly involved plots that mix inescapable truths with ironic fun.

An academic mystery w/ a fresh slant and a down to earth wit

Jane Isenberg's debut mystery THE "M" WORD is a fresh look at crime in academia. Bel Barrett is an English professor whose views were shaped in the sixties, but now that she's turning fifty those beliefs are becoming more difficult to maintain. She works at a struggling community college that garners little respect from either its students or staff until a new president takes over. When the president is murdered and one of Bel's students is falsely accused of the crime, she feels compelled to find the real killer. In the process Bel exposes the high stakes of patronage in urban education, the differences in both the dreams and the demands of students who attend this type school versus those attending the ivy halls of a four year university, and the seamy side of people she thought she knew. Making Bel's investigation more difficult for her, but more amusing for the reader are Bel's struggle with mid-life changes.Bel Barrett is a fresh idea for an amateur sleuth. Her down to earth wit keeps the reader turning the page for more. This is the beginning of a original new series. I can't wait to read the next one.