Lev Raphael, State University of Murder

Lev Raphael, State University of Murder
Perseverance Press
© Lev Raphael 2019
ISBN 978-1-56474-609-2


This is the ninth mystery featuring Lev Raphael and his (now) spouse, Stefan, and the State University of Michigan.  I have read and mostly enjoyed the first eight books.  But this one eluded me.  To explain why, I need to digress, and explain my background.


Since August 1965, I have spent much of my life on university campuses, first as an undergrad at a small, private liberal arts college, then four years in grad school, and, since 1973 (except for a four-year stint working as an economist in local government), as a faculty member (from 1973 to 1976 and 1980 to 2012, full-time, at five institutions, 25 years at the last one; then six more years as a part-time instructor).  None of these institutions were perfect, and at one was an experience that led me to spend those four years in local government.


But.  The one bad experience was entirely a matter of the upper administration.  My faculty colleagues were generous, supportive, good at what they did.  A couple of them became long-time friends, with whom I kept in touch after leaving there.  Everywhere else—it was a pleasure to work there, and, again, I made friendships that endured, one for more than 45 years. 

My last position was at a branch campus of a major public research-intensive university (the research expectations at my campus were somewhat lower than at the two flagship campuses).  During those 25 years I was involved in a number of things that were university-wide, and I met and got to know people at all eight of the campuses.  One of these involvements resulted from my membership in a university-wide initiative to support excellence in teaching; another was my participation in faculty governance on my campus, and system wide.  This also led to my knowing, and working with faculty from all the campuses—and administrators from every campus (including three university presidents, two university vice-presidents for academic affairs, chief administrative officers at every campus, and academic affairs vice-chancellors at most of the campuses).  And not a few members of the board of trustees.


As a result of all this, I knew, very well, somewhere around 100-125 faculty and administrators, from all the campuses.  I developed close friendships with people from every campus and from almost every discipline (economics, of course, which is my field; history; English, including poets; political science; chemistry; business; fine arts).  And I developed friendships with non-academic folks as well—in student services, art gallery directors, non-academic administration, and so on.  


Nothing in my experience corresponds in any way to the campus as depicted in State University of Murder, in which everyone is presented as, in one way or another, as venal, or evil, or duplicitous.  Except, actually for Stefan.  Nick, who narrates the story, makes clear his disdain for the other members of the faculty who are involved in the events in the book, reveals himself (it seems to me) as being no better than the people that Nick-the-narrator presents to us as completely self-centered, with little or no interest in the university as a whole, or in its students.  As a result of my own background and experiences, I found the depiction of the university and its faculty difficult to accept.


As for the mystery itself.  As Nick relates the story, the first victim becomes obvious almost immediately—Napoleon Padovani, the newly-appointed chair of the Department of English and Creative Writing (in which both Nick and Stefan are faculty).  It takes, however, what seemed to me to be an interminable amount of time for someone to get around to killing him (Nick finds him, dead, about halfway through the book).  The official murder investigation (which is carried out by the campus police—I found this odd, by the way, as the murder has apparently occurred off-campus, at a conference-retreat center) features only tangentially in what follows.  Nick sort of pokes around, and thinks he has identified the killer, based on his identification of the cologne scent he remembers as having been what he smelled at the scene of the murder.  (By which time, the campus cops have developed some actual evidence that, fortuitously, points to the same person.)


Another aspect of the book that was relatively trivial, but annoyed me disproportionately, was Nick’s obsessive identification of every brand of food and drink and clothing.  I will concede that some of that might have been useful in providing insight into the characters, but it did not seem to me to be used in that way.


My own opinion is that this is a disappointing entry in a series that has been, generally, very good.