With a sensibility shaped in the sixties and kids born in the seventies, Jersey City community college professor Bel Barrett hit the big five-O in the nineties. The patronage politics of urban academia and the dreams and demands of city students threaten to burn Bel out but it's hot flashes and a fancy fundraiser that really turn the heat on. Before Bel has a chance to do justice to the tempting display of calorie-laden food, her slim and attractive boss, college president Dr. Altagracia Garcia, pops a few goodies, crumples to the floor, and is pronounced dead.

The murder is pinned on one of Bel's students, but Bel isn't buying it. The accused is a Culinary Arts major whose best grade in English was an "incomplete," but the boy is no killer. Although President Garcia had made her presence felt at the college, she'd ground her stiletto heels into a few administrative toes in the process. But most students and faculty adored her, and finding out who wanted the assertive lady out of the way is the least Bel can do--even when it means chasing through a maze of phony clues and false leads that challenge her mid-life memory...and learning that she herself has become the target of someone majoring in murder.