An education in murder

Wallbrook's debut mystery introduces junior professor Daphne Ouverture. Daphne was thrilled to get a teaching position at Harrison University, but has had mixed feelings about her first year on campus. As one of the few faculty of color, she's had to navigate the experience in ways her white colleagues can't always understand. One of those colleagues, superstar Sam Taylor, surprises her one night with an odd text message about the novel Papillon.**

The day after she receives the text from Sam, she learns that he was murdered and her copy of that seminal french novel is missing. When she lets the police know about the strange text, they initially wonder about Daphne's involvement in the murder. But when she's attacked, she and they worry that she may be next. Daphne has to pull her family (born and found) together to assist her in figuring out who killed Sam before it's too late. 

Daphne is my favorite kind of heroine. She's smart and competent (competence in a protagonist is my jam) and she's also warm and kind. Her ability to juggle her first year in this new job, campus politics, micro AND macro aggressions, and murder make her a very root-worthy main character. I look forward to the next book in the series (please let there be a next book).

**As a kid I was determined to read Papillon by Henri Charriere, the classic adventure novel of a man wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to a French penal colony known as Devils Island. He spends years attempting escapes, escaping, being recaptured, and doling out and receiving excessive violence along the way. I attempted the book several times, but my memory is of only making it about halfway through each time and the only thing that stuck (though may be mixing the book up with the movie) is them eating bugs to survive.