I wish I could give The Professor’s Daughter five stars, but I found it a bit less than completely coherent. The story seems to pick up in the middle, but never quite goes back to fill in the blanks.

The story also takes a sudden and surprising dark turn when an amusing event triggers a violent response, which is then followed by more violence and tragedy. The whimsical humor is still there throughout, but the balance between comedy and tragedy becomes increasingly unstable as the story unfolds.