An academic mystery novel in which we learn that the culprit murdered the victim because they could not agree on which font to use for their very important committee memo.
The tension builds throughout the book as they exchange drafts of the memo, each time changing the font back to the "proper" font.
No one mentions the font changes, they just seethe.
Exasperated, one of them sets up a Qualtrics survey for the committee. It has only one question: "what is the correct font to use for this committee's correspondence?"
Qualtrics data is inconclusive.
It's about the font, but so much more. The subtle indignities, the history of undermining, the times when one of them sat on the grant review board and purposefully tanked the other's grant project, which meant they didn't get to hire grad assistants & had a double courseload.
Another time one of them sat on the college-wide course approval committee and rejected all of the proposed courses in the others' field as being "redundant" and "superfluous," leading to the courses being taken out of the university's core curriculum.
Somehow these two enemy-colleagues were selected to co-chair a committee that will propose the new 10-year plan for their college. The stakes are high, the enmity is long.
Had one of them had an affair with the other's grad student while they were at an academic conference? We don't know, but we suspect.
One of them had stolen/"refined" the other's idea and published it in the top field journal. The article became cannonic, won all of the disciplinary awards, and is the sole reason why they have a higher H-index than the other.
The murder happens on the day that the @MacArthur Foundation announces its new round of Genius grants.
One of them has been declared a Genius. One of them is embedding hyperlinks in the committee memo to surreptitiously direct committee members and administrators to links that prove that the "Genius" is a fraud.
Who murdered whom?
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