Why the Dean Is Dead
#5 in the Briarpatch College Series
by
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JJ and Smitty, lying in their beds amid the debris of a previous evening’s party and accumulated laundry, were confident that their long-ago purchase of chemistry grades would not be discovered now that the investigation was put on hold—if it didn’t matter, why get rid of them? But they were beginning to worry about life after graduation.
“God, JJ, what will we do? Go to work? Join the army?” Who would hire them? Nobody who knew Briarpatch’s reputation.
“Your dad will find something. Maybe something to do with writing.” A wink suggested that Smitty’s dad, a trustee, would also help him pass his remaining classes.
“Hell, I can’t write worth shit.”
“How about graduate school? The worse you write there, the better. Nothing to do but bullshit in seminars and drink beer! That’s the life.” He tried to imagine Professor Stout young enough to have done this. He must have—he couldn’t describe the laid-back life at Haavad or somewhere, reading novels and poetry, impressing first-year women with big words and knowing the difference between one wine and another, without having done it, or at least observed it, could he? Couldn’t be that hard. Wine—red and white. Beer—Coor’s Extra Light or imported. His daydream, however, was interrupted by Smith: “Get into graduate school? With my grades? Get real!”
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About the Book
Briarpatch College has all the problems of American higher education in the nineties, at least as many as can be packed onto one small semirural campus. Unfortunately, Briarpatch also has had a multitude of other problems the administration would rather not admit. In the last few years, the academic dean has drowned, the president has died suspiciously, and one scandal after another has rocked the college—all events allegedly instigated by the late dean. Now with a new president in place and the college operating on a somewhat normal routine again, no one has any idea that in just a short time, the discovery of the librarian’s body will upset everything and everyone.
Mirabel Gates was a person with no friends, but also no particular enemies. Consequently, she appeared unlikely to be at the center of scandals that threaten President Flora Boater’s plans to push the college off the bottom of the US News popularity poll. As Professor Donahue and Chief Biggs begin investigating the librarian’s death, they begin to suspect once again that the late dean is somehow involved.
In this continuing mystery, murders, scandals, and the complications of academic fads shake the foundation of a small college as everyone wonders who will be the next victim.
About the Author
William Urban has more than forty years of experience in higher education, mostly at Monmouth College in Illinois where he is currently the Lee L. Morgan Professor of History and International Studies. He has published twenty histories and translations on the Baltic crusades and military history.