Mystery novel's university setting could be SIUC

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- -- Campus Falls. Greek Circle. Worley Library, where the vaulted entry boasts portraits of past university presidents, "screwed to the walls like so many ill-starred moths."

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If the university in "The Whisper of Leaves," a new murder mystery set on a campus in "the wooded hills of Southern Illinois," sounds vaguely familiar but just slightly askew, that's probably because author Craig Smith spent four years at Southern Illinois University Carbondale before completing his doctorate in English in 1988.

"From SIUC I took the fabulous setting and, of course, the library," said Smith in an e-mail interview from his Lucerne, Switzerland, home. "I used the wilderness of Southern Illinois as a contrast to the intellectual community inside the university. As (the main character's) struggle involves reconciling her intellectual and physical sides, the contrast was apt."

SIUC isn't particularly spooky -- until the sun goes down, Smith said.

"Every walk through Thompson Woods or around Campus Lake after dark reminded me that anything could happen," he said.

And things do happen in Smith's creepy story, released in September by the SIU Press ("just in time for Halloween," as the promotional material cheerily reminds).

It begins with the discovery of a woman's naked, mutilated body in Lues Creek Canyon, then jumps ahead 20 years to focus on Josie Darling, the victim's daughter. Placed with foster parents in a distant city after her stepfather was convicted of the murder, Josie has come back to the place she was born to take a temporary teaching job and search out the answers to the riddle of her mother's past.

But the killer -- a serial killer, as Josie will eventually discover -- is still very much present and soon makes his presence felt. "WilcuM HoM Josie," he writes in ragged, red letters on her bathroom mirror after her first day of work. "stil tHinkING Of u, hoR," he scribbles on a note left in her Volkswagen amidst the shattered glass of all its windows. From there, things only get worse.

"I got the idea for my story (when) I heard about a family friend who was being stalked," Smith said.

"She was in a new relationship, and there was no angry ex-boyfriend around, but someone sure knew a lot about her, where she went, the people she saw. And I thought to myself, what if it's the new boyfriend? That was all it took. In my own story, the stalker has two faces: a friend by day, the dark shadow at night."

While that stalker gave birth to Smith's story, its seed may well lie in something that happened on the SIUC campus Smith's first year, when male students were asked to provide after-dark escort service for female students in the wake of attacks on several women.

"I did it once," Smith recalled. "I did not know the girl. She did not know me. I could not help but imagine how she felt, being both terrified at what could be waiting in the dark and wondering just what kind of man was walking beside her."

Smith, whose model is thrill master Stephen King, thinks terror is "not a moment, but a process," a theme he builds on as the novel moves toward its inevitable end. But it's also something else.

"For me, the most terrible aspect of 'The Whisper of Leaves' is the incomprehensible violence directed at powerful, intelligent women," he said. "This is the evil inside the novel."

"The Whisper of Leaves" is the novel's third title; it was first published in 1997 in England as "Silent She Sleeps" (a moniker the publisher dreamed up), then renamed "Selbstjustiz" (or "Vigilante Justice") for German readers in 1998. When the SIU Press bought the book, Smith -- who had never liked the English publisher's choice -- negotiated for a new name, too.

The current title comes from a phrase in the novel describing the voice of one of Josie's country "cousins," a voice that comes to represent the natural world, the world of the spirit. And what do the leaves whisper?

"I think it is very plain: they tell her she is home," Smith said. "Once she knows that, everything changes."

Along with a new title, the SIU version got some new goings-on.

"One of my best additions, I think, is a scene in which a group of professors are talking to one another over beer and onion rings," said Smith, who, after finishing his degree at SIUC, went on to teach at Arkansas State University and the University of Northern Colorado.

"I included it to give a better sense of university life: old grudges, plenty of academic chatter, politics and, of course, literary allusions."

The English department at Lues State was modeled on one Smith knows firsthand, though it's not SIUC, he hastens to add -- with one exception.

"We had a prof who liked to chase one student from his classroom at the beginning of every semester," Smith said. "I gave that characteristic to Henry Valentine (one of Josie's English department colleagues)."

Smith no longer spends his days teaching literature classes and grading papers; he now works at his own writing full time. But he's not yet done with campus life. He's already completed a draft of the sequel to "The Whisper of Leaves." Called "The Whisper of Summer," it once again features Josie, who's now in a tenure-track job -- at Lues State.

"Seems they had a couple of unexpected vacancies and encouraged Josie to apply," said Smith with a whisper of irony. "Everything is wonderful at the university, but not all is well in Lues. In fact, it's an especially hot summer, and that usually spells murder. . . ."

CAPTION: (Night fright -- A killer stalks the woods near a Southern Illinois campus town in a murder mystery by Southern Illinois University Carbondale alumnus Craig Smith. "The Whisper of Leaves" was published by the SIU Press in September.)

Photo by Jeff Garner, University Photocommunications