The Question of Max by Amanda Cross

In this book Professor Kate Fansler finds herself drawn in to a mystery when her friend Max invites her to accompany him to Maine where he needs to investigate a report of mysterious strangers bothering the house of a family friend, of whose estate he is the literary executor. When Kate and Max find a body--in fact, the body of one of Kate's graduate students, it nags at her. And as she keeps investigating the death--and the literary circle to whom the author belonged--Kate discovers layers upon layers of mystery. I liked the sense that this book gives of the mystery not being all-consuming (we get a lot of Kate's day-to-day life which becomes relevant or complementary to the main story without making it feel like she's somehow become a police officer), and I loved the double ending.