Amplified Silence
a Novel
2021
Kieran Egan
Saved from certain death on the Whistler-Vancouver highway after his luxury car malfunctions, Mark Morata feels honour-bound to reward his rescuer, Geoff Pybus, with a token of his undying gratitude. Geoff, a frustratingly humble university professor who is happy with his family’s lot in life, only wants what no one could actually give: for his friendly, straightforward wife to get tenure at her university. Luckily, Mark is a man for whom impossible is just another word. As a sophisticated importer-exporter of certain recreational substances (“drug lord” is such a cliché), Mark gets to work on the academic world with the same relentless nature that helped him climb to the top of the cartel. However, the hallowed halls of the university campus reveal an environment that is vicious and corrupt beyond anything he has encountered in the drug business… Kieran Egan’s Tenure is a wildly entertaining satire mash-up, where Don Winslow’s Border trilogy collides with Julie Schumacher’s Dear Committee Members, and Richard Stark’s Parker trades barbs with Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim or David Lodge’s campus comedies. ...