A beloved high school teacher has been murdered, shot while working late one night in his classroom. Portland Police Bureau Detective Sergeant Matthew Toussaint and his partner, Detective Missy Owens, work to discover who among a disparate and disaffected assortment of suspects actually pulled the trigger. Was it the distressed student? The angry parent? The hostile fellow teacher? Or even the vindictive principal? With the help of a young student teacher, Toussaint and Owens delve into school politics and expose simmering resentments and rancor in search of the truth.

About the author: This is Clyde Curley’s second novel in the Detective Toussaint Mystery series. He is uniquely qualified to address the issues raised in A Cup of Hemlock, coming as he does from a long professional career as a high school English teacher in Oregon. With the success of his first Detective Toussaint novel, Raggedy Man, and the awards and honors it garnered, Clyde has happily settled into a new career as an author committed to exploring the compelling urban landscape of Portland, Oregon in the company of his favorite fictional detective. Clyde lives in Bellingham, Washington with his wife, Susan.