PLAYING OUT THE STRING

Leggett's debut fancies itself a mystery—though not so much a whodunit as a sustained inquiry into the subterfuge of petty academics and the perils of political correctness at a liberal Southern college—as Robert McCabe, a well-liked professor of literature and film, finds himself embroiled in a scandal that the college dean is only too happy to inflate. With maddening evasiveness, the dean, assisted by the school's beguiling young lawyer, informs McCabe that a graduate student has identified him as the man who, months before, committed a lewd act in the library, saddling McCabe with the burden of proof in Kafka-like moments of upheaval. As the accusations mount, McCabe's cinematic imagination whisks them into a realm of intrigue. He pores over case notes for motives and jabs at conspiracy theories with almost comic conviction, estranging his sensible wife along the way. Incisive anonymous letters, a brush with the law and McCabe's growing intimacy with the school's lady lawyer raise the stakes for McCabe and readers alike. Negotiating the line between satisfying fiction and cultural commentary, Leggett employs as his first-person narrator a journalist who's trying to spin the saga into a New Yorker -esque indictment of the rancorous university climate. While McCabe is not always likable, his agenda-touting accusers are far worse, and Leggett pits them against each other with taut pacing and crackling dialogue. (Nov.)