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Title: Give Betsy a rest
Review: I've read all four books in this series and there has been a steady decline. The problem is that the premise is only good for one use, after which, it defies credulity. Are we really supposed to believe that one University---make that one Department---is the setting for so much publicized mayhem? Such a University would have to give free tuition and board because no straight-thinking parent would let a child attend. Raphael stubbornly confines each book to the University, ignoring that every successful amateur sluth has operated within a variety of settings. With Burning Down the House, Raphael can't even think of a decent murder (at least in the preceding book, he sloppily threw in a murder at the end). He gives us instead 200+ pages of banal dialog and musings on middle-age crisis about sexual identity. My strong advice to Raphael is to stop trying to milk a cow that's long gone dry. It's udder nonsense.
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