Death in a Hot Flash

The Subject is Murder

Professor Bel Barrett has enough on her plate teaching English at a Jersey City community college. Between hot flashes, she's worrying about her two grown kids and whether her significant other is becoming less significant. Yet somehow Bel lets a colleague, Vinny Vallone--part-time Funeral Services Education teacher, big-time undertaker--flatter her into believing that the future of feminism in the funeral business depends on her acting as a role model by teaching his class how to research and write. But before Bel actually gets into co-teaching the inner-city undertaker wannabes, Vinny the undertaker turns into Vinny the deceased.

There's no doubt it's murder, and suspicion is focused on one of Bel's students, a young reformed ex-gangster. Bel doesn't believe the born-again ex-con murdered Vinny and, as always, she makes it her business to right a wrong. With no shortage of suspects, Bel sets out to catch a killer, despite the strong possibility that her nose for news may land her in a hot spot even she can't fan her way out of.