Under the Fume Hood

Zara Evangeline Sterling, a fourth-year chemical engineering student at the prestigious but pressure-cooker Northbridge Institute of Technology, is used to solving problems-chemical equations, reactor simulations, late-night lab reports. What she isn't used to? Being involved in a real-life murder.

A student's untimely death in the lab building causes shockwaves on campus, but the school administration quickly denies it as a tragic accident. End of story.

But Zara doesn't buy it. The individual who was victimized was a reserved, high-functioning person and her former lab partner, who had exhibited no errors in the laboratory. Furthermore, the chemical inventory report from that evening had an odd odor of acetone and something... off. It was quite strange indeed.

In the absence of a criminology department on campus and without any official backing, Zara takes matters to her own hands by combining her analytical mind, chemical intelligence knowledge, and unexpected friends from her research group.

She uncovers a mysterious "ghost thesis" that was supposedly buried years ago.

Her digging deep reveals her to someone that she already encountered. In a campus with overcrowded classrooms and fiercely competitive professors, who would kill to protect a secret?

And when Zara herself becomes a target, she realizes the most dangerous reactions don't happen in beakers-they happen between people.