SHADOW ON THE CAMPUS

by Donal Hamilton Haines ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 1942

In the Fall of 1939 at a very large mid-Western University, four dissimilar boys became friends and room-mates, namely; Mike Trent, whose main interest was in foot-ball. Dick Partridge, who was too interested in the societies for his own good, Bill Slade, who was a reporter with a desire for more learning, and Sid Lane, who wore thick glasses and took his physics too hard. The campus atmosphere and reactions were particularly interesting to this reader who has been watching young cousins who were terrifyingly uninterested in world affairs until December 7th. Mr. Haines has two or three discouraging slants on university life beside the isolationist attitude, he shows up the dullness of most of the professors and the sad cases of boys who have been pushed into everyday college life when they were keen for something else, like the foot-ball player whose fingers were being ruined for the piano and the boy who yearned to paint but who was being trained to take over his father's factory. Dick is the central character, a young man whose eyes are opened the hard way, his growth is interesting to watch. Faintly stirred by the Russo-Finnish fighting, he has an unusually clear and horrible dream of the Men of the Sea under a bushy-browed leader. Later at class elections he is conscious of a bad element under a Schmidt brother, is elected to a rich, second-rate fraternity, goes down South shooting with his father during vacation. He has another ghastly dream in which the same evil face is seen in vile cahoots with Napoleon. During the winter a supposedly Czech professor comes to lecture to the Ionian Society; terrifyingly enough Dr. Bassine's face is the same Dick has seen in his two nightmares! Thoroughly aroused to the dangers of verbal penetration and sabotage by the Axis, Dick and Slade get on the trail of an evil plot. The book starts off as a regular college, foot-ball story but there is much more to it.

Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1942

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar & Rinehart

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1942

Categories: FICTION