Extra Credit by Maggie Barbieri

Navid Tajkhorshid

October 9, 2019

            Hello everyone! Today I’ll be talking about the book Extra Credit, by Maggie Barbieri. This is a rather obscure title (It was rather buried in the public library), but it ended up being a pretty compelling read. I would recommend this book to anyone who is willing to experiment with their reading in a bit of a different mystery story.

            The book follows Alison Bergeron, a middle-aged college English professor, who gets sucked into a murder mystery about her husband’s ex’s brother and his wife. After a period of absence, Chick, Alison’s husband’s ex’s brother, shows up with $10,000 to give to his nephews. Because of this, suspicion arises about how Chick obtained such a large amount of money to give away. The plot furthers when Alison and Crawford, her husband, discover that Chick committed suicide and that $250,000 was hidden in his mattress. They begin to suspect that Chick’s ex-wife, whom they spotted at his funeral, Sassy du Pris, may have been involved in this.

            The main thing that stood out to me while reading this was the characterization of Alison, who narrated the story. The author of the book took a risk of being simplistic by having Alison explain exactly what she was thinking in every scene. In my opinion, it paid off. Alison being very open about what she is thinking makes her a very dynamic character. This does not make the narration seem simplistic, because nearly all of her statements require a bit of thinking to understand, or even read into. Her personality also comes through in her interaction with the other characters, mainly Crawford and Max, her friend. She barely stated anything outright, instead trying to frame it in a funny or annoyed way. This different method of narration makes to book seem fresh, and more entertaining. Her funny and occasionally moody personality carries much of the story forward, and it would be a lesser novel without it.

            The main plot of the book is well enough paced. The exposition is well handled, especially when you consider that this book is part of a series and must reintroduce many characters. For readers new to the series, like myself, the beginning is very densely packed with information, but that was not much of a problem because of the aforementioned narration style, which makes it feel like the author is not just pelting you with facts. The introduction even manages to introduce the reader to Alison without saying anything about her, because of the narration style (I really like then narration style). After Chick is discovered to be dead, the story chugs along at a nice pace; as soon as a plot point has run its course, a new one gets placed in. 

The one part of the plot that I did not like was a side plot about Alison and Max’s friendship being tested. While many other relationships are explored when Alison is investigating, such as when Alison brings along her friend Kevin McManus to find Sassy, this side story seems very tagged on. It is not central enough to be its own main thread but is very loosely connected to the mystery. If I were to fix this, I would have Alison keep turning to Max for help and intrude on her life, annoying her and causing her to distance herself from Alison. This would make the plot tighter, and would serve as a nice lesson for Alison, as she feels like Crawford’s ex, Christine, is intruding too much on her life.

The mystery aspect of the narrative is relatively satisfying, but I wish it was solvable by the reader. Unlike Sherlock Holmes or Harry Potter mysteries, where all the information is in place for the reader to put together, the mystery in Extra Credit was more of the “go along with it” type. While following Alison and her amateurish investigations is interesting, the solution would have been much better if the author just dropped in a few clues here and there about Chick’s death. Instead of me going “How could I have not figured it out!” when I read the solution, I felt more like “Huh. Cool.” That being said, there are enough clues in place for the reader to appreciate how they come together.

Overall, I enjoyed Extra Credit. In fact, after finishing the book, I started to miss the characters, which normally only happens after I finish an entire series. The characters and narration save it from being a mediocre mystery story. Instead, it is a unique, entertaining, and funny book that deserved a look from anyone in the library, even if it isn’t a New York Tomes bestseller.