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Mortimer Sadler hadn't wanted Notre Dame to go co-ed, not if it was only going to accept girls who would turn him down flat. After a few romantic rebuffs, he started an unsuccessful crusade in the campus papers to drive them out. Decades later he still hasn't forgiven the women, and invites only his male classmates to a class reunion. Unfortunately, the bane of his life also attends -- Maureen O'Kelly, the target of both his failed aspirations and his worst rantings, who in turn made him the target of her vicious valedictorian speech. The two rivals bet each other $100 that each could win a game of golf, but Mortimer's morning practice is cut short by a drink from a poisoned water bottle. Maureen is the obvious suspect, but why would she also put poison in her old college crush's waterbottle? Her daughter is dating his nephew, a botany student with access to the same poisons. And then there are the fanatical golfers, who have never quite forgiven Mortimer for building a dorm on top of the original course. And then again, there's the accidental suicide angle -- a suspiciously-timed case of food poisoning once got Sadler out of a tough chemistry exam. As befits a collegiate mystery, this slim volume is full of words like animadversions, risible, villanelle, and avoirdupois. It helps to have a dictionary on hand. It also helps to know golf and Catholicism. I can't speak for the other seven books in McInerny's Notre Dame series, but GREEN THUMB is so insular, it is probably best to pass right by unless you are a Catholic golfer. There is no attempt to explain the game or the religion because everyone in the book shares them both. The jokes are in Latin, recognition of religious art is supposed, and the solution to the puzzle relies on a conservative Catholic tenet that makes little sense to outsiders or even liberal Catholics. This book is for members of the club only.
Reviewed by Linnea Dodson, December 2004
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