Title: A Crooked College: 1974 . . . 1975 . . . 1976 . . . 1977
Author: E. Timothy Lightfield, Ph.D.
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1546253440
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 564
Reviewed by: David Allen
Pacific Book Review
Welcome to Crooked College, a hotbed of corruption, payola, sleazy extramarital affairs, and grief. Author E. Timothy Lightfield, Ph.D. takes us on a personally guided tour of community college academics and administration, from the unique perspective of one who has been there and knows of what he speaks.
Not to say that this is a tell-all memoir. It is fiction. What Dr. Lightfield achieves in this sprawling novel covering the mid 1970s in central New Jersey is a fantasied burlesque of hijinks in higher education, served up as a telling and always engaging whodunit.
Paul Kelleher, President of Central Jersey Community College (CJCC), is a testy executive officer of good Irish stock who is driven by the twin engines of ambition and a moral higher ground. He smokes three packs of Marlboros a day and dresses each morning in front of staff members, to enforce his dominant position at the head of the college hierarchy. His marriage is on the rocks and everyone from the Board of Directors on down hates him (“Did anyone have a grudge? Just about everyone.”) Kelleher is dying from cancer, but drinks to mask the pain. One fine day Kelleher is found dead in his office. Suspicions and motives are rife. Did Kelleher succumb to illness? Did he commit suicide? Or was he murdered by one of the many axe-grinders?
The author admirably succeeds in capturing the temper and tone of the time – the Equal Rights Amendment has been passed, Equal Opportunity in the workplace is enforced, and Carter and Ford have been in the White House. The book is a fascinating spin on the genre; it is a murder mystery also serving as a vehicle for social commentary.
The backstory of each suspect’s gripe with Kelleher is sketched out in vivid detail. Mrs. Kelleher has a torrid one-night fling with another woman. The Jewish basketball coach’s appeals for team funding are denied. The head of informatics surreptitiously guzzles gin in Dixie cups. Doctoral theses are defended and academic promotion is fatally competitive. CJCC is a world where “…partisan and political intrusions were normative.” (An understatement!) Defiance of Kelleher and the status quo takes various shapes, including a huge helium float of a rat on the roof of the administration building.
The author, E. Timothy Lightfield, Ph.D., has been a professor, researcher, chief academic officer, campus provost and president. He is the recipient of numerous awards and academic distinctions. He deftly weaves his knowledge of academia into a tasteful and highly readable narrative which at times is masterful.
The book is divided into four sections: Previously; Present; The Inquest; and The Coroner’s Summation. The Inquest, headed by coroner and sometime Sheriff Arthur Clough, is dramatically served up as an edge-of-your-seat court transcription. The white-knuckle finale is in the finest traditions of Sherlock Holmes, Perry Mason, and Dr. Quincy, Medical Examiner, which finally lays all questions to rest.
Who or what killed J. Paul Kelleher? That would be giving it away! Readers who find out for themselves have a wild and mischief-filled carpet ride in store.
