IRISH ALIBI

Meet the Southern side of the Fighting Irish.

Just like that of Saddam Hussein, the statue of Baron Corvo, the third president of Notre Dame and a Civil War cleric who blessed the Union soldiers on the eve of Gettysburg, has been toppled from its pedestal. The twin pranksters are the Kincade brothers, who commandeered a truck and rammed the offending memorial to impress the Southern coeds on hand for the football game between Notre Dame and eternal rival Georgia Tech. But their horrendous prank is surpassed in skullduggery when Madeline Butler, a visiting Memphis romance author, is smothered in her hotel room by one of her many quasi-admirers, whose well-stocked numbers include her ex-husband, her future husband, her recent one-night stand and the student-age lothario who came knocking on her door. Whodunit? The Knight brothers, Phil and Roger, are on the case, although even they are stymied by the plethora of beards among the suitors, a scratch on the face of one of the twins (but which one?) and the rampaging egos of authors who insist that only their work on Corvo (Union supporter? Confederate ally?) gets him right.

A breezy, slight, middling case for the Knights (The Letter Killeth, 2006, etc.), but no Notre Dame alumnus or Southern cupcake will want to miss it.