The Green Revolution
Ralph McInerny
St. Martin's, Sep 2008, $24.95
ISBN: 031236458X
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
No comments:
Post a Comment