Harry Kemelman: The Day the Rabbi Resigned (USA 2015)

From the Publisher:
Rabbi Small has left the synagogue, but he's not done with sleuthing, in this "engaging" mystery from the New York Times-bestselling author (New York Newsday).
After three decades of dealing with temple politics and getting involved with more than a handful of murder investigations, Rabbi David Small is ready to retire from his synagogue in the cozy Boston suburb of Barnard's Crossing. For years, his secret desire has been to permanently take up teaching, but when he finally leaves the synagogue to pursue that dream, life at a university proves more dangerous than he thought.

Late at night, a notoriously ambitious college professor dies in a car wreck. The academic had been drinking heavily, but evidence suggests that the crash might not have been an accident. The local police are stumped and enlist the only detective they know whose astute eye and quick mind come from a higher power: Rabbi Small.

Harry Kemelman: The Day the Rabbi Resigned. A Rabbi Small Mystery. Open Road Media, ISBN: 9781504016131 (August, 2015), eBook, 703 KB (ca. 281 p.), $7.99.

Harry Kemelman: The Day the Rabbi Resigned (USA 1993)

From the Publisher:
Although his years at Barnard's Crossing have never been dull, Rabbi Small is bored with clerical duties and wants to teach. But before he can say "alma mater," the rabbi is enlisted by Police Chief Hugh Lanigan, his partner in crime-solving, to set his scholar's mind to a drunk-driving accident that looks like murder.

Victor Joyce, a local college professor infamous both for his ambition and his extracurricular activities, had been drinking heavily the night of the crash. But a witness who passed by the wreck insists that the victim was definitely not dead, just unconscious. Rabbi Small's suspicions are further aroused when he learns that quite a number of "innocent" citizens drove down the seldom-used road on that rainy Saturday night. Any one of them could have had it in for the not-so-revered-professor...

Harry Kemelman: The Day the Rabbi Resigned. A Rabbi Small Mystery. Fawcett Crest, ISBN: 0449219089 (January, 1993), 280 p., $5.99.

Harry Kemelman: The Day the Rabbi Resigned (USA 1992)

From the Publisher:
So he's back. Rabbi David Small, that is. The best-loved and most unorthodox rabbi ever seen in or out of temple. Part Talmudic scholar, part Sherlock Holmes, Rabbi Small has been delighting mystery fans for twenty-five years. The New Yorker calls Harry Kemelman's Rabbi Small books "first rate" and The Cleveland Plain Dealer says they are "delightfully different." The Houston Chronicle declares him "America's favorite kosher detective."

Now the bad news. The rabbi wants to leave. Although his years at Barnard's Crossing have never been dull, Rabbi Small is bored with clerical duties and wants to teach. But before he can say alma mater, the rabbi is enlisted by Police Chief Hugh Lanigan, his partner in crime-solving, to set his scholar's mind to a drunk driving accident that looks like murder.

Victor Joyce, a local college professor who'd do anything for tenure, was known around the quad as much for his extracurricular activities as for his classroom demeanor. Joyce had been drinking heavily the night his car was stopped by a massive tree trunk on the side of a dark road. But when Dr. Abner Gorfinkle passed by the wreck, the victim was definitely not dead, just unconscious -- which makes Rabbi Small consider the victim's demise a suspicious turn of events indeed.

Chief Lanigan and the wise rabbi discover that there were quite a number of "innocent" citizens driving down the seldom-used road on that rainy Saturday night. And any one of them could have had it in for the not-so-revered-professor. But it is Rabbi Small, combining the wisdom of Solomon with an analyst's understanding of his fellow man (and woman), who ingeniously lays out all the answers like a delicious holiday feast.

Harry Kemelman: The Day the Rabbi Resigned. A Rabbi Small Mystery. Fawcett Columbine, ISBN: 0449906817 (February, 1992), 273 p., $20.00.