Murder by Degrees concerns the murder of an unpopular English professor at a small southern college. Each of the other professors is a potential suspect. Zebra's mysteries have an unusual feature in that there are clues not only in the text, but also in the cover art and in the drawings inside the book. (There are six drawings inside Murder by Degrees). Pearson deftly handles the small-college setting as she paints a picture of Mississippi's fictional Jernigan State and the surrounding community. To southerners, the elements of the setting will "ring true." (Pearson hits the major institutions of small-town southern life: the college, the churches, the beauty salons, the fading homes, and the watering holes). The characters are, if anything, even better than the setting. As the story progresses, the reader learns about the mysteries in each professor's life. The story focuses on Maggie, a young professor who discovers her boss' corpse at the beginning of the book. Though Pearson tells most of the story from Maggie's perspective, Murder by Degrees also uses the viewpoints of a local police officer and another professor at Jernigan State. Pearson deftly disperses the clues in a way that keeps the story moving toward its conclusion. There are also some great quotes (generally from classic literature) at the beginning of each chapter. This adds something to the book; it always seems a waste when authors label their chapters only with numbers.