Myron Bolitar was a star basketball player in college and headed for the pros when his knee was permanently injured in a freak accident during a pre-season scrimmage game, abruptly ending his career. He headed to law school, did a little work for the FBI and
then became a sports agent. In this third Myron Bolitar novel, Bolitar is
recruited by the owner of the New Jersey Dragons, ostensibly to play ball, but
really to locate their missing star player, Greg Downing, before the
tournaments start. The owner says that as part of the team, Bolitar will have
access to the players and their closely held knowledge of each other.
Bolitar is aided by a group of cohorts including his slightly sinister, preppy college roommate, Win; a female sports reporter, Audrey Wilson; and his sharp-tongued assistant, Esperanza. They follow a twisting trail to discover the location of the missing player. As the investigation proceeds, Bolitar must deal with secret meetings, sixties radicals, mob goons seeking repayment of gambling debts, blackmail and a nasty custody fight.
This is an action packed book, yet the characters are well developed and Coben gives Bolitar a sharp, sarcastic sense of humor. The book was originally published in 1996, so parts are a bit dated (think car phones and acid washed jeans). Despite this, it is a fast-paced, entertaining read.
The book comes to a satisfying conclusion as Myron Bolitar learns a little more about professional sports, the life of an investigator and his own psyche. Although this is the third in the series, it can certainly stand alone as a page turning mystery.
Read-alikes:
Monkey’s
Raincoat by Robert Crais
New
York Dead by Stuart Woods
A
Cool Breeze on the Underground by Don
Winslow
Terry
Z. Lucas, Rogers Memorial Library
The Contender by Robert Lipsyte
Dick Francis’s Gamble by Felix
Francis
The
author’s father, Dick Francis, published each year from the early 1960’s until
his death in 2010, his last few novels collaborative efforts with Felix. Dick
Francis had many best sellers and numerous fans who waited eagerly for the next
title: Felix’s books promise to be popular as well. All the books have the exciting world of
horse racing as their setting. ‘Gamble” is narrated by former jockey Nicholas
Foxton who becomes the hero of the tale after his co-worker is shot dead next
to him at the Grand National.
Though
he and Herb work together at a small financial advisory firm, Nick is greatly
surprised to learn that the dead man named him executor and heir to his estate.
While sorting through Herb’s papers, Nick makes some discoveries that plunge
him in to a world of international financial fraud, illegal betting, money
laundering, and murder, with Nick an intended victim.
The
writing is crisp, and polished. There is lots of action, interest with the
various plot threads, and Nicholas is a likeable, engaging hero. There is a
richness of detail which brightens the story.
And there is romance, for Nick’s loving girlfriend Claudia has an
important role in the book, reminding him of what matters most in the life of
this ex-steeplechase jockey.
Read-alikes:
Dark
Horse by Tami Hoag
Royal
Heist by Lynda LaPlante
The
works of Robert B. Parker
The
works of Sue Grafton
Suzanne
McGuire, Commack Public Library
On Earth as it is in
Heaven by Davide Enia
Enia’s first
novel, a multigenerational saga about a teenage Sicilian boxer in a family of
boxers, was a critical and commercial success when it was published in Italy in
2012. Cosi in terra was then translated by Antony Shugaar and published
in the United States in March 2014 where it met critical acclaim. The story is
set in Palermo, Sicily with a timeline that reaches from WW2 to the early
1980’s. Davidù is the narrator of this story and it opens when at the age of
nine he first enters a boxing ring so his great-uncle Umbertina can see if the
child has the potential to follow in his father and great-uncle’s footsteps.
Davidù is growing up in the crime-ridden and dangerous city
of Palermo where the Mafia controls the town and poverty and illiteracy plague
its residents. The novel’s glow comes from inhabitants such as Davidù, his
grandmother Provvidenza, an elementary school teacher, his grandfather Rosario
who barely survived WWII as a POW in North
Africa, and his great-uncle Umbertino who trains Davidù
in the hope that he will win what he and Davidù’s
father could not – Italy’s National
Boxing Championship.
The language and
action in the novel can often be brutal and crude but the characters and their
stories make it worth any discomfit that a reader might experience. Between the
action of the boxing matches, Davidù’s coming-of-age story, and the unforgettable characters
On Earth as it is in Heaven will hold
the interest of both male and female readers.
Read-alikes:
The Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
The surrealism of Haruki Murakami
Kathleen Carter, Retired, Mastics-Moriches-Shirley
Community Library
Calico Joe by John Grisham
When Joe Castle is called up to the majors in 1973, he becomes a star player, quickly rising in popularity as he begins to break record after record. The kids want to be him, the players want him on their team and it seems like he can do no wrong. That’s how Paul Tracey feels, at least. Paul loves baseball and having a dad who’s a pro ballplayer is everything a kid could dream of except Paul’s dad isn't the best guy. When Paul’s dad and Joe meet on a fateful day in August, two careers will be changed forever and Paul’s love of baseball will be irrevocably changed.
An easy read even though it includes such heavy topics as
abuse, dysfunctional families, death and alcoholism, Calico Joe gives the
reader an inside look at baseball through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy.
Although not historically accurate, Grisham peppers the book with stats and
sightings of real players to coordinate with his two fictional players: Joe
Castle and Warren Tracey. The parallel story of Paul Tracey trying to set right
the pitch that ruined both his father’s and Castle’s careers plays on the
reader’s emotions and keeps you wondering if Warren will do the right thing in
the end.
Told from Paul’s point of view and alternating between his
memories of 1973 and the present day, this book is good for baseball lovers,
sports fans and those who don’t know much about the game but would like to read
a book about baseball without getting bogged down in too many technicalities.
The story is easy to follow and has enough of a hook to keep the reader
interested. Women will enjoy it for its emotional aspects while getting caught
up in the hype of the game while men will enjoy it for its historical look at
one summer in baseball while not being overwhelmed by dramatics.
Read-alikes:
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (2011)
Battle Creek by Scott Lasser (1999)
The Man with Two Arms by Billy Lombardo (2010)
Azurée Agnello, West Babylon Public Library
Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella
The Black Sox Scandal of the 1919 World
Series rocked the baseball world and became a cautionary tale for all young
baseball devotees. Joe Jackson was an uneducated hick, yet a gifted hitter, and
was found guilty along with eight other players of accepting money to throw the
series. The sense of betrayal of the
baseball-loving public was hard to imagine at a time when baseball was
America’s sport and its players were idols. The next year after being indicted
for gambling against his own team, Joe was banned from baseball for life. Shoeless
Joe Jackson is the metaphor for the innocent man corrupted by the greed of
others. His story has captivated readers of all ages and Kinsella’s magical
realism treatment of Joe’s story was beautifully translated to the screen in Field of Dreams. Originally Kinsella wrote a short story Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa and
then fleshed it into a full-length novel entitled Shoeless Joe in which
he incorporates J. D. Salinger into his quest to build a baseball field on his
farm because a radio announcer voice tells him: “If you build it, he will
come.”
Read-Likes:
Snow in August by Pete Hamill
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen
King
Peggy McCarthy, Retired, Smithtown
Library
Rules
for Becoming a Legend by
Timothy S. Lane
A story of family dysfunction, love, loss,
acceptance, basketball, and how one boy succumbs under the pressure of being a
hero in a small town.
Jimmy Kirkus is a 16-year-old phenom; superstar of
his high school’s basketball team and destined for the NBA. All is right with his world. Until the brick wall. One day after practice, Jimmy stays behind in the
gym and repeatedly runs into the brick wall until he falls down unconscious.
The chapters in the novel are dedicated to before
and after-- ten years before the wall, 2 days after the wall, 3 months before
the wall, 3 months after the wall, and so on. Before the wall, the reader gets the history of Jimmy’s dad, who was
lined up for the NBA until a knee injury sidelined him for good. It also shows how he dealt with his hero
status, his marriage to Genny, and the death of their first daughter,
Suzie. After the wall, Jimmy must decide
whether or not he’s ever going to play ball again.
The many chapters make this easy reading, but
jumping back and forth before and after the wall confused me much of the time
and I had to keep looking back to the chapter headings. This is a good read for young adults, as it
deals with powerful topics, but doesn't delve too deeply into them. It’s told in third person so we never get
inside Jimmy’s head, but can imagine what he’s feeling.
Read-alikes:
Labor Day, by Joyce Maynard
Battle Creek, by Scott Lasser
Tap Out, by Eric Devine
Labor Day, by Joyce Maynard
Battle Creek, by Scott Lasser
Tap Out, by Eric Devine
Lori Ludlow,
Babylon Public Library
The
Taliban Cricket Club by Timeri
N. Murari
It is 2000, and the Taliban
has gained control of Afghanistan. Rukhsana is a twenty-four-year-old female
journalist who had worked for the Kabul Daily until the Taliban took control
and sent women home to don a burqa. One day the Taliban announces its intention
to hold a cricket tournament, the winner of which will represent Afghanistan in
international cricket and give the brutal regime a cloak of respectability in
the world.
Rukhsana knows this is a
ludicrous idea—the Taliban could never embrace a game rooted in civility, fair
play and equality but she also realizes that this is a chance for her brother,
her cousins, and herself to escape their repressive homeland and her forced
marriage to a Taliban official. Those who are chosen for the Afghan team will
be sent to Pakistan to train where they could escape to freedom.
Having learned the game from
an Afghan neighbor she is now betrothed to, and having played at college in
Delhi, Rukhsana disguises herself as a man and secretly trains her brother and
cousins how to win their freedom with a bat and a ball.
The details of life under the
cruel Taliban regime whose laws dictate that women should only be seen in the
home and in the grave, the man and woman accused of adultery shot dead in the
street, the former president hanged outside his palace -- set alongside the
pure democracy of a sport such as cricket, make this a solid read for lovers of
sport and those who follow current events.
Read-alikes:
Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas
Swarup
The Kite Runner by Khaled
Hosseini
Kabul Beauty School by
Deborah Rodriguez
Grace O'Connor, Retired, West Islip Public Library
The Peerless Four by Victoria Patterson
It’s hard to imagine that there
was a time when women were actually banned from participating in sports-related
activities. The consensus was that women should not aspire nor pretend to be
men through athletics—it would make them less attractive and jeopardize their
childbearing abilities. The Peerless Four
is about a real-life group of Canadian women (“The Matchless Six”) who were allowed
to compete in the Olympics—specifically those in Amsterdam in 1928. The characters
may be imaginary, but their historic plight is not. The book follows four young
women who experience joy and personal clarity through sport, in spite of society’s
disapproval. Told through the eyes of their chaperone, a frustrated runner in
her own right, The Peerless Four traces
the path of four determined women who blazed the trail for women in sports.
Profiles of the women are included
at the beginning of the book giving insight into their personalities and a feeling
for the times in which they lived. The first person narration provides an easy
read and the story encompasses history, love, the thrill of victory and the
agony of defeat. A poignant moment in the book is a letter, composed a few
years after the events have taken place, providing a follow-up on each
character—some having fared better than others—but all forever affected by
their love of sport.
Short in length and a light read,
The Peerless Four provides a feel for
the history of women in sports. It will appeal to anyone with an interest in
that history, anyone who may have experienced it and it may serve as a primer
for young women today who may not be able to imagine it.
Read-alikes:
Extraordinary Women Athletes by Judy L. Hasday
Game Set Match by Billie Jean King
100 Trailblazers by Richard
Edward Lapchick
Deborah Formosa, Northport-East
Northport Public Library
The Might Have Been by Joseph
M. Schuster
This is the story of Edward Everett Yates, an aging baseball player
driven by the slim chance of anyone beating the odds against making a major
league team. After he is sidelined by a
freak accident during his own chance, he passes up an opportunity to “settle
down” for a life helping others chase that dream. At 60, he finds himself broke and alone, managing
a failing bush-league team.
The author’s style is simple and direct and his focus is clearly on our
hero. Yates really lives “in the moment” and is constantly adjusting to events
beyond his control. Consequently, the
pacing is erratic and the tone varies from slapstick comedy to near tragedy. The book should appeal to sports fans of all
ages and to anyone who ever wondered why an attractive youngster never “grew
up.”
This book could spark a lively discussion. Schuster has simply re-imagined The Natural as it might
have played out in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Book clubs could compare it to Malamud’s
original and Redford’s movie version or even discuss the values of the culture
which supports Yates’ lifestyle.
Read-alikes:
Battle Creek by Scott Lasser
The Sweetheart by Angelina Mirabella
Wild Pitch by Mike Lupica
See-alikes:
The Natural
Slap Shot
See-alikes:
The Natural
Slap Shot
Jackie Malone, Bellmore Public Library
