Grab the Lapels

The Sorority Murder by Allison Brennan

I picked up The Sorority Murder by Allison Brennan at the library book sale because I was hoping it would be slasher-ific, like a throwback to Christopher Pike or R.L. Stine’s Fear Street series. Instead, I got a crime procedural, and I’m not mad about it.

After some cursory research, I learned Brennan is a prolific author who has a variety of detective novels (some are romance-thrillers, which I hope to avoid). To date, her best-known character is Lucy Kincaid, so maybe you know that series. I had no clue who Brennan was.

In The Sorority Murder, we open with Candace, a senior in college and sorority sister who decides at a spring party hosted by the sorority that she’s going to reveal something she previously agreed she would not. It’s never the wrong time to do the right thing, and she feels guilty. In the next chapter, Candace is dead and the suspected murderer is a transient alcoholic.

Cut to three years later; the suspect has never been found, only assumed the guilty party. College student Lucas needs a project for his senior capstone in Criminology and chooses a podcast that will help him gather information about Candace’s death. Lucas knew Candace briefly because she tutored him before she died, though she cut ties with the tutoring program for unknown reasons seemingly connected to Lucas. This makes you a little suspicious of him.

The police procedural aspect comes in when Lucas’s professor recommends he interview Regan Merritt on his podcast. She used to be a U.S. Marshall whose job was finding people who didn’t want to be found and transporting prisoners. Regan’s expertise leads to some hesitant folks on campus reaching out to Lucas after listening to his podcast. In fact, the whole campus, Candace’s old sorority included, grows obsessed with the podcast as more details about Candace are revealed. And yet, the sorority is supposedly against the podcast, claiming it is disrespectful of Candace’s accomplishments.

While I don’t typically read mysteries or police procedurals, I loved The Sorority Murder. Despite many personal wounds, Regan is professional and has good judgment. She explains how the law works, guides Lucas to lawyers and police, instructs Lucas on how to be safe because he’s now a target, knows how to research, and shapes questions to the podcast listeners that help them realize what they experienced was important — even when it didn’t seem important three years ago after Candace’s body was found: “I would suggest your listeners look at their calendars, schedules, social-media posts from the week of April 12 three years ago. It’s easy to check your memories, see what you posted, who you were with.” I hadn’t considered the ways social media and calendars could help solve a crime; we have a digital memory thanks to technology.

Brennan’s novel is also notable for what we don’t get. We don’t get lost in a budding romance side plot. We don’t get a maverick-type who thwarts the law. If anything, Regan is someone we can trust, while Lucas seems to have something he’s keeping to himself, and he makes mistakes because he is an impatient college student. The killer is eventually revealed, and because this is not a thriller, there are no left-field surprises at the end, which I appreciated. On the other hand, Regan never tries to accuse and apprehend the main suspect just because she has a gut feeling. Instead, Regan looks for facts and evidence and maintains her safety and that of Lucas.

My only quibble is that Candace keeps a journal, and while Regan and Lucas have not yet found it, we readers get passages from the journal throughout the novel, making me feel like we were skipping ahead without our protagonists.

Though The Sorority Murders is not part of a series, a second book was released not long ago, suggesting Regan Merritt could crop up again in the future. I plan to read the next book, Don’t Open the Door, soon.

16 comments

  2. I don’t like the cover. That and the title would put me off exactly for the reason you thought you would like it – it makes it look more slasher-ific or horror.

    I don’t read much crime as you know, but when I do, my preference is the police (or other) procedural. I like these because of their focus on the solving rather than on the crime itself. Often the crime happens off the page and sometimes before the story starts, putting the focus on the analysis and the characters.

    Re your quibble, I understand it but I don’t think it would be a quibble for me. I think I’d be thinking, “ooh, how interesting” and “I wonder why the author is doing this”. I don’t think I ever care if I’m ahead of the protagonists in a book. I think this is because even though I can become emotionally invested in protagonists there’s part of me that is always interested in the writing and what the writer is doing. I don’t think I ever become so engrossed that I forget I’m reading a story written by someone and am wondering why they are writing it and making the choices they are making.

    BTW I fascinated by the way our current technological lives are playing a role in crime solving, so the use of social media here,not to mention podcasting, appeals a lot. But, that cover and title! Haha!

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    • Despite the cover and title, I think you would like this book, then. None of the crimes happen on the page, and there is no violence on the page either. The murders happened 3 years ago, and all the rest is the procedural stuff. I like that it’s an unlikely duo: a Marshall who quit her job and a college student. Although it used to happen more often, I still can get so lost in a book that I forget where I am. I’m just always grateful when I’m in public and get that feeling and don’t accidentally cut a huge burp or something.

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  3. Sounds like fun! The podcast thing reminds me of Only Murders in the Building. Have you seen that series? Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez, good chemistry and good comedy 🙂

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      • Hmm, there might be some confusion. Selena Gomez and Martin Short are not a couple in the show unless it happens in season 4 which hasn’t been released yet. The last season Martin Short and Meryl Streep were a couple, is that maybe who you were thinking about?

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        • All over the internet people were saying something about it being inappropriate that Gomez and Short are such different ages. Now I’m thinking the internet was wrong. I’m so glad, because I like Selena and both Martins.

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  4. I don’t know if I would have expected a horror novel from the cover, but I probably would have expected a kind of boilerplate thriller rather than a procedural! I’m glad Regan has the common sense to look out for her own safety instead of going off and taking lots of absurd risks – that’s such a frequent feature of thrillers and it does get on my nerves. I like the idea of using a podcast, too!

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    • Lou, I could see you liking this book. It’s got all the sort of stuff that you’ve mentioned on your own blog that you enjoy in a procedural/mystery. Is it available in the UK? I would think so; the author is extremely popular. The fact that I had never heard of her before is just a testament to me never reading mystery novels.

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  5. This sounds like something I might like – I don’t know why I’ve never tried this author before. Maybe because I’ve been trying to finish long running mystery series for quite a long time. Maybe I’ll give one of hers a whirl.

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