Mystery

Upcoming mystery novel is set at Mount Holyoke College

Upcoming mystery novel is set at Mount Holyoke College

Mount Holyoke’s campus in the nineteenth century is the setting for the upcoming book “Killingly” by Katharine Beutner, a professor at the College of Wooster in Ohio. Based loosely on true events, the novel follows the search for missing Mount Holyoke student Bertha Mellish. In an interview with Mount Holyoke News, Beutner described “Killingly” as “a queer historical crime novel … It was a time when there was a lot of anxiety in the culture about women’s roles and this idea about the new woman now as an independent, possibly even financially independent, figure.” 

“The Collector’s Apprentice”

BY KATE FLAHERTY ’19

Art, deception, love and murder are the centerpieces of B.A. Shapiro’s historical mystery novel, “The Collector’s Apprentice.” Shapiro, whose 2012 novel “The Art Forger” became a New York Times best-seller, delivers a lyrical and elegant story set in 1920s Paris and Philadelphia. Shapiro weaves in the lives of dozens of historical figures like Henri Matisse and Gertrude Stein, immersing the reader in a world of postImpressionist artists.