The Green Revolution

It's fall at the University of Notre Dame and that means football. Usually, Notre Dame football means success and happiness for the fanatics who follow the game. But recently, football means defeat and, as the story begins, defeat even by inferior foes. The University is in uproar, with alumnae calling for drastic changes and one faculty member suggesting that the time has come for Notre Dame to abandon football altogether. Meanwhile, a complex love triangle involves a former football star, the star's wife, and a dentist. When the dentist ends up dead, all of Notre Dame holds its breath and brothers Philip and Roger Knight dust off their private detecting skills. After all, it's not only important to find the killer, it's even more important to protect the name of the University of Notre Dame...at least, that's the opinion of some true-believers. Philip and Roger find motives going beyond simply the love triangle. Once, Iggie, the dentist, won a coveted academic award that would otherwise have gone to Wintheiser, the football star, but did so by cheating. Still, that was years ago. Author Ralph McInerny continues his Notre Dame-set mystery series with a story that picks up on the politics and dreams of the University. Alumnae and fans are quick to call for heads to roll. Sports in general, and football in particular, have been allowed to overshadow the most fundamental purpose Universities are supposed to serve. And within the University itself, petty politics continue, while there are those who are only too happy to cover up any number of disasters to protect the reputation of their beloved institution. McInerny's writing style is smooth and he skillfully weaves together the clues and the characters, making each sympathetic in their own way. McInerny shows a distinct affection for the past, but doesn't hesitate to remind us that there never was a time of perfection. THE GREEN REVOLUTION will probably find its most contented readers to be among the fans and former students of Notre Dame, but it's a pretty good mystery even for those of us who attended others schools and celebrated rare victories over that football colossus.

Some folks think the Catholic devotion to Our Lady (Notre Dame) is near-sacrilegious. Who knows what they would make of the Catholic devotion to Notre Dame football! Ralph McInerny's new Knight Brothers mystery, "The Green Revolution," takes place on the Notre Dame campus during the football team's worst season in recorded history (or recent memory, which might as well be the same thing). Under those circumstances, someone is bound to get murdered. For the sake of this plot, someone obligingly does. "The corpse on the putting green," a hostess observes. "That sounds like Agathie Christie." Indeed it does. "The Green Revolution" is marketed as a cozy mystery, but the mystery seems an afterthought. It is more a comedy of manners, and McInerny (author also of the popular Father Dowling Mysteries) is at his best indulging in light, elbow-ribbing satire of Notre Dame's eccentric faculty. He is in a unique position to do so, having taught at the university for over fifty years, and he even manages to slip in some pointed commentary about the school's increasing secularization. Sprinklings of Latin and references to Shakespeare and Baron Corvo elevate the proceedings, but McInerny wears his erudition lightly. He may have titled his book The Green Revolution, but his style is comfortingly orthodox. -- John Murphy (www.catholicfiction.net)

Fans of the Notre Dame University Fighting Irish football team expect nothing less than competing for a national title; playing in a BCS bowl that is not the championship game is barely tolerable. After a strong 2005 campaign and an okay 2006 season, in 2007 in his third year as head coach, Charlie Weis is in trouble with the alumni as the team suffers through an ignominious season of defeats; unheralded in the history of the school.. Many want him fired as defeat after shocking defeat occur;s even Navy ended the ended the longest losing streak in college football after forty three straight losses. However, some angry fans go further with their desire to see the multimillion dollar Coach Weis follow Whittington his predecessor while academic purists want the sport dropped referring to the once great football power the U of Chicago as a precedent. However, the battle between the fire the coach and end the sport turns lethal with non football fan Professor of Catholic Studies Roger Knight caught in the middle of the battle. Meanwhile his brother major football fan private investigator Philip investigates a "love" triangle that may be using The Green Revolution to hide a much more convoluted conspiracy than the Notre Dame football civil war. The mystery comes very late in this fascinating look behind the scenes of the impact of the worse football season at Notre Dame; thus the latest Knight brothers investigation is more a sports thriller than a whodunit. THE GREEN REVOLUTION is at its best when the focus is on the reactions to the losing season; when the tale switches to the investigation it remains fun, but loses much of the uniqueness of Ralph McInerny's interesting look at what matters to various interested parties at a university. Harriet Klausner