Oswald G Ragatz

Murder Twice Two Oswald G Ragatz

Dean Daniel Allen''s Friday afternoon trip to Jackson''s Hardware in downtown Jeffreysville for the mundane purchase of a deadbolt lock for his kitchen door becomes the prelude to ten days of momentous events. Several members of the faculty as well as a number of students at DeMott University will never be the same after Dean Allen finds the beautiful Jeanette de Lorien in a piano practice room in the tower of the University Library, finds her very dead indeed. An unlikely detective, only Dean Allen''s sense of duty will keep him cooperating with the Campus Security and the Jeffreysville police. Sometimes he will find himself caught in the crossfire between these two unacknowledged rivals in enforcement of the law. At other times he will seem almost to be thwarting the police investigation when his loyalty to his faculty colleagues prevents him from telling the whole truth. He also will find himself going out on his own in questionable attempts to follow his secretary''s advice to solve a crime by "knowing your victim." Not only will he end up knowing the victim, but he will learn a great deal about the lives of a number of the suspects, and there are a surprising number of these in the quiet Midwestern town and on the conservative campus of DeMott University! He also will find out a bit about himself, leaving him surprised and quite pleased. This book is not so much a typical murder mystery as it is a study of the people encountered in the story. The basic premise of the author is that people''s behavior is the result of the totality of the experiences of their lives. Such behavior may not be condoned, but it can be understood. And a campus in a small Midwestern town can be the scene of just as much irrational, aberrant, or immoral behavior as may a more urban environment. The setting gives the author opportunity to give the reader some insights into academic life on such a campus. More than forty years on the music faculty of a large Midwestern University gave Oswald