The Hydrogen Murder by Camille Minichino

Disappointing. Perhaps I just read it in the wrong company. It is a little unrealistic to expect a formula "cozy" mystery to hold its own among the stuff that I have been reading just recently. And this is definitely "cozy." I know I have debated with myself the definition of the cozy mystery genre without solving the puzzle, but I will unhesitatingly label this one. This leaves me with a PhD physicist as the protagonist of a cozy mystery while Miss Marple, an elderly lady who is never more than a few feet from her knitting, is not.

It is possible that my problem has something to do with the fact that this 55-year-old woman with a doctorate in physics (although Minichino never specifies her speciality) behaves like a 14-year-old with a crush on her history teacher over the cop who is heading the investigation into the murder. I found her twittering and dithering extremely irritating, even embarrassing. I also found the ex-boyfriend who had carried the torch for thirty years while she was on the west coast rather ridiculous.

Minichino, herself, is a physicist on faculty at a rather prestigious university. I assume that the science is not without merit. But even the science loses credibility in the hands of the cast of this piece. I do hope that the author is not attempting to pattern her heroine after herself.