Nick Hoffman Series by Lev Raphael

When Perry Cross, an outsider, is hired to fill a new position at the State University of Michigan, fellow teacher Nick Hoffman finds the situation curious. But his curiosity changes obsession when he learns that his longtime lover, Stefan, shares a past with Cross. Now Cross has been murdered, and both Nick and Stefan are prime suspects.

Chaos hits the State University of Michigan when two bitterly rival Edith Wharton societies are brought together for a joint conference. Its reluctant organizer, assistant professor Nick Hoffman, is desperate to get tenure, but things go from bad to worse to murder. There's never been an academic satire quite like this one or a sleuth like Nick Hoffman.

He'd been warned to avoid Nick Hoffman's outspoken attitude and reputation for being in the wrong place at the wrong time had placed his career in jeopardy. But what trouble could be caused by eating lunch?It was his partner Stefan's idea that Nick eat near the campus bridge over the Michigan River once in a while, something to help him get over the nightmares of the murder two years earlier... moreHe'd been warned to avoid Nick Hoffman's outspoken attitude and reputation for being in the wrong place at the wrong time had placed his career in jeopardy. But what trouble could be caused by eating lunch?It was his partner Stefan's idea that Nick eat near the campus bridge over the Michigan River once in a while, something to help him get over the nightmares of the murder two years earlier. Nick's involvement had brought publicity, bad publicity, to EAR (the Department of English, American Studies, and Rhetoric), as well as to the State University of Michigan, and not done very much for his staying on a tenure track. With his review coming up soon, Nick didn't need any distractions...and he certainly didn't need to see the person lying dead on the bridge.Forced to wade ever deeper into the events set in motion by another death on campus, inexorably drawn into another risky investigation in the surprisingly cutthroat world of academia - where murder and faculty meetings are often difficult to tell apart - Nick's job isn't the only thing that may be on the line. less

Based on a 1904 unsolved murder case in Indiana, Crimson Snow weaves immigrant life, class and ethnic tensions into a taught drama featuring Swedish maid, Hilda, in the Studebaker mansion.