The Silly Season — Susan Holtzer

STRANGE LIGHTS IN THE MICHIGAN SKY

The gathering horde of psychics, alien abductees, and millennialists swear it's an authentic UFO hovering over UM, but to student and Daily sports reporter Zoe Kaplan, the sightings look like a group of fireflies mating. The controversy deepens when history professor Thomas Edison Stempel, a dedicated ufologist, suspects that someone is trying to discredit his extensive research. Hip archenemy, biochemistry professor Conrad deLeeuw, thinks Stempel set the whole thing up, and fanatic Jarvis McCray claims documented proof of alien/government conspiracy.

WAS IT A HOAX, OR A CLEVERLY DESIGNED PLOT TO KILL?

Police lieutenant Karl Genesko is stymied, while his fiancee, computer consultant Anneke Haagen, is amused, and Zoe is thrilled at the chance lip string the story for the AP. But when Professor Stempel turns up electrocuted on a wide swath of burned field, the silly summer season turns deadly. Genesko's out to trap the killer--with a trap so dangerous he may not survive to tell the tale.