A linguist tries to solve a murder mystery in this Edgar Award–nominated novel: “Intelligent, unpredictable . . . and extraordinarily funny” (San Francisco Chronicle). Dedicated to the study of toddlers and their development of verbal skills, the Wabash Institute should be staffed by kind, gentle scholars. Instead, the center is home to a nest of supremely cranky academics. When one of them is bludgeoned to death, Jeremy Cook—the institute’s premier scholar and this novel’s socially clueless hero—becomes the prime suspect. To clear his name, Cook resolves to solve the case, even if it means taking time off from his hobby of teaching imaginary words to the Institute’s tiny “subjects.” While gleefully skewering academia, the author—a professor of linguistics himself—also provides a spectacularly ingenious puzzle and, in the words of Publishers Weekly, “a first-rate thriller.” “The dialogue is crisp and witty, and the plot as unusual and engaging as any from the Golden Age of the classic detective story.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch “An engaging oddball of a hero.” —Kirkus Reviews “Mystery stories that have a really original solution to a crime are very rare, but Dr. Carkeet has found one . . . a thoroughly enjoyable piece of work.” —The New York Times Book Review