(Reviewed by Don Jung)
A public relations director for a university, Mike Woodsen, is called by the campus police to the scene of the dead Information Technology department head. This popular professor, Jeremy Ronson, apparently fell from a four-story campus building. Was it an accident, a suicide or possibly a murder?
Mike Woodsen reviews the facts and is surprised that the police ruled it an accident within 24 hours. He is not convinced and goes outside of the scope of his job duties to investigate the events leading up to the incident. On the surface, Ronson seemed well respected in the
educational community.
The author has a background in school administration politics and has our protagonist going through the university bureaucracy for more information. It is a maze of school officials, faculty departments, alumni, and the community surrounding the area, all putting in their views of the deceased Professor’s legacy. Trying to find the right person to get the right answers is a difficult task in this setting where you must grant favors just to interview some of the university’s elite leaders.
This Pacific Northwest Institute of higher learning feels it is on the same level as Harvard and the public relations job has to deal with campus leaders who try to rebrand their image with poor television commercials that ignore the academic merits of the college. The story exposes the shady underbelly of student recruitment.
As our hero gets roadblocked in his investigation, and appears to reach a dead-end, some unusual events come into play. He suddenly gets threats and messages to stop what
he’s doing. Where does he turn? Knowing his job and life are in jeopardy, he is unafraid. He goes to the squeaky-clean administrators to tell them this new occurrence and the ending is a surprise.
I enjoyed Ivy is a Weed immensely as the author kept me engaged throughout the story and most of all, though the conclusion is plausible, it comes out of left field. A surprise I wasn’t expecting.
