Monday, March 23, 2015

Monday With Kaye: "The Setup Man" by T. T. Monday (Review by Kaye George)

Kaye George returns for another “Monday With Kaye” segment that has quickly become one of the more popular ones on the blog. This week she considers The Setup Man by T. T. Monday…..


The Setup Man by T. T. Monday

Don’t shy away from this mystery if you’re not a baseball fan. The industry is seamlessly interwoven into the story and you’ll pick up all you need to know without any effort. If you are a baseball fan, dive in headfirst.

Johnny Adcock is a setup man for the San José Bay Dogs baseball team. A setup man, in modern baseball, is a pitcher who is called in for only a few pitches and not in every game. And he hardly ever bats. He has plenty of free time and gets paid more money than he knows what to do with. So he does private investigating in his off time, a profession he fell into but now loves.

The team’s backup catcher, a young, genuinely nice kid named Frankie Herrera approaches Adcock to solve his problem: some porno films his wife made before they were married. When Frankie is killed in a car accident soon after that, the whole mess doesn’t smell right. Adcock swings into action, assembling his off-diamond team, a rainbow mix of oddballs. He soon discovers that what he knows is the tip of a very deep, very dirty iceberg. Toss in his ex-wife and fourteen-year-old daughter, and you’re in for a good read.

This is the author’s first thriller, but I hope it’s not his last.


Reviewed by Kaye George, Author of Death in the Time of Ice for Suspense Magazine

 

5 comments:

  1. I love sports books and rarely do you find one with a mystery. Thanks!

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  2. I think baseball, especially, is unusual for a mystery. He did a great job on it.

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  3. I think there is a natural affinity between sports and mysteries. Unfortunately we've recently lost two greats: Alison Gordon who wrote the Kate Henry, baseball sportswriter, series, and Jeremiah Healy who had a series about a tennis pro turned P.I. named Rory Calhoun. I hope T. T.'s series is successful. thanks for bringing it to our attention.

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  4. I didn't know about Gordon's series. Harlan Coben writers the Myron the sports agent, but the sport isn't central as it is in Monday's book. Thanks for coming by, Mark.

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  5. I'm working on this read and baseball is a huge part of the book. He did a very good job working it in and making baseball a character while keeping the main thrust of the book--the mystery-- going forward.

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