Ruins of Civility: A Jamie Ramsgill Mystery

by James Bradberry

Princeton architecture professor Jamie Ramsgill journeys to Cambridge, England, to research a new book and to visit his former mentor, retiring professor Rainer Grass, but his trip takes an unexpected... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 031214041X
• ISBN13: 9780312140410
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 241 Pages
• Weight: 1.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Good continuation of series

James Bradberry's Ruins of Civility is the second in the Jamie Ramsgill series, set about two years after the first book, The Seventh Sacrament. Ramsgill is a Princeton architect-academic, visiting his old college in Cambridge University to research his current writing project. He arrives a day late, to discover that his mentor Rainer Grass disappeared from a dinner the previous night after announcing that he had changed his mind about retiring at the end of term. Police search and Ramsgill's inquiries reveal that almost everyone in the department had reasons to hate Grass: a colleague who expected to step into Grass's vacant position; a colleage whose latest book he was helping to edit; a graduate student who is pregnant with his child; another female graduate student who sees in Grass the rapist from her past; an African student facing charges of plagiarism who's also sleeping with Grass's estranged wife; the estranged wife; an American graduate student who resents Grass's treatment of his pregnant lover; a department secretary who shared an affair with Ramsgill while he had been a s student at Cambridge. The policeman on the case, Detective Chief Inspector Lyndsay Hill is also an old classmate who lets Ramsgill work with him to solve the mystery. The identity of the murderer is somewhat a surprise, though it is adequately set up with appropriate clues. That being said, there were a few detractions. One distraction is the technical description of CAD and photo manipulation via computer and of ground penetrating radar to locate a body encased in concrete. These are essential components of the plot, but they are excessive. Another distraction is the shift between points of view of the various characters, making it difficult to identify with any. A third is Ramsgill's unemotional response to the revelation that his lover from student days had been pregnant with his child when he left Cambridge--he has been a father for eighteen years without knowing it. Yet, immediately upon his announcing that he does not want his daughter to know of his fatherhood, he tells his lover in Princeton (with whom he's fought commitment for two years) that he wants commitment and a child with her. It just doesn't ring true. Still, Ruins of Civility is an above-average mystery in an interesting series.