Professor Prather Mystery Books in Order

Mary Angela's Professor Prather Mystery series centers on Emmeline Prather, an English professor in Copper Bluff, South Dakota. Em lives and works in a small college town where the campus is a world of its own, full of students, faculty members, performances, committees, deadlines, and old disagreements. It is a good place to teach literature. It also turns out to be a surprisingly good place to find murder.

Em is curious, determined, and not especially willing to leave a question alone when someone she knows is in danger. Her work gives her useful habits for sleuthing, including close reading, research, and a willingness to look past the obvious story. She may be an amateur investigator, but she takes the people caught up in each case seriously.

Her closest partner is Lenny Jenkins, a fellow English professor and trusted friend. Their conversations bring humor and balance to the mysteries, especially when Em's investigation leads them somewhere they probably should not be. The series also follows the changing shape of their relationship, while keeping the central focus on the case at hand.

An Act of Murder begins when a student dies while working on the fall musical and Em suspects it was no accident. In Passport to Murder, a planned faculty and student trip to Paris is stopped by a death before the plane gets far from Minneapolis. A Very Merry Murder brings danger to a holiday concert, while Coming Up Murder uses a Shakespeare festival and a heated academic debate as the backdrop for another killing.

Copper Bluff gives the books their steady rhythm. The campus shifts with the school year, from new-semester nerves to spring travel plans and December celebrations. Faculty politics, classwork, town traditions, and literary references all become part of the setting, but the stories stay focused on Em's effort to separate gossip, coincidence, and real evidence.

The tone is cozy and bookish, with traditional whodunits, seasonal atmosphere, and a heroine who would rather solve the mystery than let the wrong person carry the blame. Readers can start with An Act of Murder to meet Em and follow her cases in order.