Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Passport to Murder: A Professor Prather Mystery, Book 2 is a murder mystery novel written by Mary Angela. This was it. Emmeline’s long-awaited trip to France, which would hopefully spur the university to finally set up an official French Department, was just a day away. While it had originally been planned for the fall semester, spring break seemed the perfect time of the year to enjoy a week in Paris. Two students had failed their introductory French class and had been dropped from the arrangements, but French Professor Duman and Emmeline had found professors who were more than willing to take up those impromptu vacancies. Emmeline had everything planned for the trip, but something nagged at the back of her mind. Perhaps it was her Catholic upbringing with its attendant harbingers of bad luck, but the number of travelers had somehow become 13. It was easy to scoff at superstitions, but there were just too many old tales about the thirteenth guest to allow at least some apprehension.

In the morning, a chartered bus drove the travelers from Copper Bluff, South Dakota to Minneapolis, where they would catch a direct flight to Paris. There were no hitches in that first leg of their journey, and soon they were in the plane -- Emmeline only had to relax and not get too stressed due to her fear of flying. But then something awful happened. A professor dies mid-flight, and the plane was ordered to turn around and land again in Minneapolis. The police requested that the group find hotel accommodation and be available for questioning, frustrating the entire group who still had Paris in mind as a destination. Emmeline loved a good mystery, but this one struck too close to home once again, and she knew she had to help figure it out, and maybe save the trip.

Mary Angela’s sleuth mystery novel, Passport to Murder: A Professor Prather Mystery, Book 2, finds the resourceful Emmeline Prather once again immersed in a murder mystery involving another professor from campus. Angela brings the collegiate experience into the forefront of her mystery series, and anyone who’s ever walked through a college quadrangle when the first buds of spring break through after a long winter will smile and nod in recognition with Emmeline and everyone else on campus, as they struggle to keep their minds on classes, assignments and looming exams instead of the wonders of the dawning spring. I loved feeling the college experience again as we see Emmeline interacting with her English comp students and dealing with departmental and faculty politics. Her sleuthing is a delight. There are plenty of red herrings and clues for the armchair sleuth to consider along with Emmeline, and the grand unmasking of the killer hearkens beautifully to the familiar drawing-room exposes of classic mystery novels. Passport to Murder: A Professor Prather Mystery, Book 2 is most highly recommended.