Codename Va Voom: A Tale of Corruption, Espionage and a Hint of Murder in the Nation's Universities

ISBN-13: 9781490995243 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 356 str.

Hermann Alfred Shumway

Opis

Codename Va Voom is a deliciously black satire that delves into the dark mysteries of the university world - and the evils that lurk within the hearts of academics. It is a tale of two elderly professors who decide to throw out the ethics rulebook, to tackle corruption and fraud through their own brand of vigilante justice - all in the interests of higher learning, of course. Horace Funder, the Dean of Engineering at the University of Southebourne, once said sarcastically that the only reason that organized crime doesn't flourish in universities is because the staff are too egocentric and selfish to actually organize themselves - otherwise, the basic ingredients for malfeasance are all present. Chief among these ingredients are the honest academics who are content to allow evil to continue - as long as it doesn't interfere with their personal careers. The University of Southebourne wasn't the world's worst university, but it was a long, long way from being the best. Years of mismanagement and lack of leadership at the top had created an institution which was not only a poor performer academically, but one rife with corruption and fraud. Professor Eunice Scrubb was the Dean of the Arts Faculty, and an internationally acclaimed author. At 63, she had already set her mind towards retirement. Apart from the ongoing war with her arch enemy, Professor Horace Funder, life for Eunice at Southebourne was soul-destroying but otherwise uneventful and comfortable. When Horace's health unexpectedly takes a turn for the worse, Eunice's complacent life is changed forever. After 30 years of warfare, Eunice belatedly discovers that the values which united herself and Horace were far greater than the bickering that divided them - both shared integrity; decency; a toughness of mind and spirit - and a foul mouth with a vocabulary not fit for a barge canal. Recognizing his own frailty and mortality, Horace bequeaths Eunice a toolkit, which is to be used to decapitate the Southebourne management regime and enable her to fight entrenched corruption in the nation's universities through a combination of espionage and ruthless vigilantism. Together with her long-suffering colleague, Zelda Bumstead, Eunice turns vigilantism into an art form, administering brutal justice on her own terms, in order to build a new university system from the ashes of the one she inherited.