Brian, I'm calling from the President's Office, there are 135 of us here.

     More years ago than I care to remember, I picked up the phone on the desk of the president of Wagner College and said the above words. 
     Two weeks ago, for the first time in years, I ran into Brian -- Brian Morris, then director of communications for the college, now a vice president of the Staten Island Zoo. I'm not going to comment on whether Wagner was sort of an annex to the zoo.
     At the same alumni event when I saw Brian (who wasn't thrilled the long-ago student radicals hadn't given him a heads up, but got past it long ago), a journalism professor asked me to talk to a student about what it was like to be editor of The Wagnerian during the Age of Dinosaurs.
     I knew the student would be amazed at the technology. 
     Students today are used to portability. The young lady was amazed by a typesetting machine the size of a church organ. She didn't expect to hear we had to type headlines separately and paste the whole mess on a page with wax. She never saw cutting and pasting that involved an X-acto knife and a waxer.
     I wasn't expecting her to be equally surprised about our attitudes as about our Neolithic technology. Today's students apparently don't questions authority. Can you imagine? 
    I talked about the occupation of the president's office. About the time the black students' organization occupied an administration building and got so bored they cleaned. . .and mimeographed daily extras of The Wag. They lowered them out a window in a basket. Of course I had to explain the Gestettener stencil cutter, but that I expected. But she was not used to hearing about occupations and marches and leafletting at the ferry terminal. What do they do in college today?
     My professor friend said it just doesn't occur to her students to question authority. 
     She also said they found the movie "Spotlight" slow. Slow? They love "All the President's Men," of course, but "Spotlight" is slow. I would expect that from pre-schoolers. 
     Could it be they are so dependent on their fast-paced technology they don't know how to sit still. Are they so indulged by their lifestyles they can't rebel? Haven't they heard "no" enough? 
     We believed rebellion was a right of passage as well as essential for the survival of the planet. They stakes must not be high enough now. That's hard to believe. These kids have never known a world when we haven't been at war. But, they've never had a draft, either. 
     They are indulged, but not everything is easy.
     A few days after the alumni event, I attended a Deadline Club panel on covering identity politics. To me, the most interesting part was when a recent college grad, Vann Newkirk, pointed out new media opens new avenues for harassment. Another panelist, Jennifer Vanasco of WNYC said students want to try out new ideas and have discussions "but Twitter sends it out."
    Moderator of the panel Jessica Seigal noted, "I wouldn't feel comfortable saying things I said when I was in college because of social media."
     Isn't that sad?
     College kids are supposed to speak their minds. They are supposed to sit on the floor late at night drinking cheap wine and smoking weed (with towels strategically stuffed under the door) and plot the overthrow of the government. They are supposed to be full of righteous indignation and unfocused anger. They are supposed to stay up all night designing flyers to hand out at the ferry terminal first thing in the morning.
    To think they are afraid because the things they say to each other won't stay there is very sad. How on earth do they learn to grow up?

A Game Called Dead

  

     The thing about series mysteries is they take some time to get going.  You can like the first book, but not be sure there’s enough weight for a sequel.

      So, when I picked up Michael Stephen Daigle’s A Game Called Dead the sequel to The Swamps of Jersey I was wondering where it would go. Would it pick up the story? Would it just give curmudgeonly cop Frank Nagler another case? Would it answer the questions about “the woman?” Would it answer the questions about the town?

      Of course, each book in a mystery series has to answers some questions, leave others unanswered and raise new ones.

      A Game Called Dead does just that.

      Frank Nagler is just as curmudgeonly, but maybe more compelling. The town of Ironton, a thinly disguised Dover, is still dingy and damaged. But, we learn it has a college and an independent bookstore. Daigle captures the town-gown dynamic and brings in some terrific new characters. Things aren’t totally bleak for Ironton, in spite of a murder and arson.

     Daigle does not just type out another police procedural. He draws the reader into the story, but also into the somewhat irregular heartbeat of the town and its people.

     Jimmy Dawson is back. An old newspaperman, he is trying to make it in the new economics of journalism with a hyperlocal website. His headquarters is the local coffee shop to avoid the quiet of the library and NCIS reruns at home. That is so relatable.  

     New is Harriet Waddley-Jones (a great name for a college administrator) who may or may not be part of the college’s reluctance to admit anything ever went wrong within the halls of ivy.

     The initial crime is murder and attempted murder of two students who remained on campus during a break. The reader figures out long before the police do who the perp is, but the why remains the mystery. Is it tied up with a video game played in reality? Does it have something to do with serial murders from years ago or with the political corruption that dragged Ironton down? And are the campus crimes connected with vandalism at the bookstore and the fire at the community center?

     The answers don’t come easy to Nagler, but the plot is compelling and the writing is masterful.

     If you haven’t read The Swamps of Jersey, start there, but do pick up A Game Called Dead. It’s a great summer read.