Death Makes The Cut

by Janice Hamrick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

On the last day of summer vacation history teacher Jocelyn Shore is busy getting her classroom in order awaiting the onslaught of the more than 2000 Austin, Texas teenagers who will be saying goodbye to a hot steamy summer and beginning a new school year.  Jocelyn hears the loud voices of what appears to be an abusive confrontation between Fred Argus, fellow teacher as well as the tennis coach and a typical unrealistic parent who thinks his freshman son should be team captain (Really?) and she rushes in where others fear to tread confronting this angry blustering man as if he were an errant school boy himself.


 This approach is effective and the situation is resolved but aptly named Fred Argus is not behaving in his usual manner and he leaves for home.




The next time Jocelyn saw Fred was on the floor of the tennis shed, lying with his milky white eyes blankly open surrounded by some tennis balls. Fred was on older man in his sixties who was a teacher as a second career.

 Despite being a coach he was known for his spindly white legs and his two pack a day smoking habit. Jocelyn knew him to be an excellent teacher and she credited him with teaching her more than she learned in all her formal years of education with regard to how to impart knowledge to the teenage mind.


Despite the fact that the police are called it is natural to assume that this death was a natural one and although Jocelyn is deeply saddened the pressing issues of the first day of school is upon then them. Aside from here own classes she is expected to help her look alike cousin Kyla teach a course to girls about technology as part of a community service program.


It doesn’t take long for it to become clear that this death is really a murder. Before the day is out she finds that she is also the new interim tennis coach.

But Jocelyn is not too busy to realize that that Fred had been on the trail of some wrong doings and as she begins to investigate she puts herself in danger. The clues are there for the reader to join in the hunt for the murderer. He will murder again before he is through.


This is a lively fast paced story with an excellent cast of characters. The setting is a bit unlike high school as I knew it, but hey, the times they do change. It may help that I read it at this time of year but I felt the sweltering Texas ambience like I was there.  The characters have developing nice backgrounds which were introduced in the first of the series DEATH ON TOUR.