Don't Need A Diagram: Lily Brooks-Dalton, “The Light Pirate”
Showing posts with label Mark Stevens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mark Stevens. Show all posts
Thursday, August 13, 2026
Friday, July 10, 2026
Paula Messina Reviews: The Fireballer by Mark Stevens
Please welcome author Paula Messina back to the blog today…
The
Fireballer
by
Paula Messina
The Fireballer,
a novel by Mark Stevens, is the story of Baltimore Oriole rookie pitcher
Frank Ryder who can put the ball over the plate at more than 100 mph. Fueled by
Ryder’s gas, the hapless Orioles are at last truly in the pennant race. Ryder
is haunted by an accident his errant ball caused when he was twelve years old.
Ten years later, Ryder is a phenom, a pitcher who is untouchable.
He has achieved
his goal of playing in the majors, but he can’t relax and enjoy his success.
Ryder misses Maggie, his girlfriend, who is hundreds of miles away in school,
but if he’s willing, there are plenty of women lined up who are even more
willing. He has the sudden wealth that is heaped on athletes, so he can afford
a fancy condo with a fabulous view. But it’s icy, not a home. He’s been
convinced to wear expensive duds, but he feels like a fraud. Ryder is
recognized everywhere he goes, and he has no clue how to handle himself. He’s a
once-in-a-lifetime pitcher driven by his love for the game. All he wants to do
is throw strikes and win games.
And underlying
everything is that accident Frank Ryder cannot escape.
Fireballer
is about guilt and redemption. It is also about baseball, a big business that
eats its own.
Ryder’s pitching
prowess makes him a freak. His success makes the baseball union and the
commission decidedly uncomfortable. They want to ban those 105 mph pitches.
After all, how can the bigwigs watch baseball’s best hitters stand helplessly
at the plate while their batting averages wallow in the toilet. Not to mention
the possibility fans will become bored with all that Frank Ryder winning.
Before the union
and commission can impose a speed limit, Ryder’s teammate is beaned and out for
the rest of the season. The unwritten rule in baseball is that the pitcher
retaliates. Tit for tat. We lose one. You lose one. His teammates on the field,
in the dugout, and in the bullpen expect Ryder to do the right thing, seek
revenge. Only Ryder is having none of it. He shakes off his irate catcher’s
signals to bean the batter.
The next pitch has
a mind of its own and hits the batter in his torso. He’s down, definitely out,
and not moving.
Nobody believes it
was an accident. Ryder is suspended.
But far worse,
Ryder’s arm goes AWOL. He’s a pitching phenomenon who cannot pitch.
The reader roots
for Frank Ryder to overcome his past and find happiness because he is a normal
Joe, a good person overwhelmed by circumstances. His pitching is freakish. He
is not. We know Frank Ryder. He’s your next-door neighbor, the kid you went to
high school with, or your first cousin lucky enough to make it to the majors.
He’s normal in every way except when he picks up a baseball and steps onto the
mound.
Can Frank Ryder
revive his arm, or is he a flash in the pan whose time has already come and
gone?
At times, it’s painful to read Ryder’s story.
I mean this in the best way possible. His agony is so real, so visceral the
reader can’t help but be moved. Most of us never come close to that kind of
fame and success, but we all experience guilt and the need for redemption. We
know what it’s like to struggle to recapture a part of ourselves that was lost.
It’s man’s fate.
The novel’s tension dips when Ryder turns his energy to philanthropy by
visiting a school. This isn’t a surprise. Ryder’s humanity spends most of the
novel hovering around the edges waiting to surface, but Ryder and the students
struggle to communicate. The chapter would have benefited from a bit of
judicious pruning. It’s the pressure Ryder puts on himself and inflicted by the
Orioles staff, the union, and the baseball commission that fuels the novel. The
Orioles’ race for the American League Pennant and the biggest prize of all, the
World Series, keeps the reader turning pages. We want Frank Ryder to prevail
because he is one of us.
Despite the
philanthropy dip, the writing is solid. Stevens creates characters that readers
identify with and care about. He’s a master of description. Ryder’s twin
brother “broods on problems. Ryder only played chess with Josh if they used a
timer.”
Stevens lets the
reader hear the ball as it smacks into the pitcher’s glove and the sound of the
fans in the bleachers. “The crowd buzzes. It’s the hum of humanity. It’s
restlessness. It’s wonder. It’s 37,700 squirming fans who have agreed through
some sort of telepathic communion to react as one.”
Fireballer reminds us that baseball
once was America’s favorite pastime, and within its pages, Frank Ryder, is our
favorite player.
Mark Stevens, a Massachusetts native, lives in Colorado and writes The
Flynn Martin Thriller and The Allison Coil Mystery Series. In
2016 and 2023, Stevens was recognized as
the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ Writer of the Year. Stevens knows his
baseball, and he is a wise man. He does not like the designated hitter, neither
does Frank Ryder.
The Fireballer is a
grand slam that should be designated to the top of your to-be-read pile.
Amazon
Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4g4y1ct
Paula
Messina ©2026
Paula Messina writes the
Donatello Laguardia stories, which are set in Boston’s North End during the
1940s. They appeared in the Best New England Crime Stories 2024 and
2025 and another Donatello Laguardia short story is scheduled to
appear in Black Cat Weekly. She lives near America’s first public beach.
Thursday, June 25, 2026
Thursday, May 28, 2026
Friday, May 15, 2026
Saturday, April 25, 2026
Tuesday, April 07, 2026
Friday, April 03, 2026
Review: Two Truths and a Lie: A Thriller by Mark Stevens
Two Truths and a Lie: A Thriller by Mark Stevens
is the second book in the series that began with No
Lie Lasts Forever.
Billed as a sequel, it is in some senses. In others, it is more a continuation
of the first book as those events are predominant through the entirety of this
book. Therefore, while I am trying to minimize spoilers, some are present in
this review. Suffice it to say, if you continue reading about this very good
book, don’t blame the reviewer.
As the book begins, the trial of Harry
Kugel is underway. Harry Kugel was the man known locally as the “PDQ” killer.
He had killed several times decades earlier and then went dark for many years. His
ego brought him down as recent murders had been reminiscent of his work. He did
not like the fact that somebody was taking credit now off of his legacy. He
wanted the imposter gone. So, he reached out to TV Reporter Flynn Martin who is
a bit of a legend, for good and bad reasons, in Denver. Ultimately, she survived,
and the man who put her and others through hell was identified and exposed by
her reporting. A little over a year later, he has finally been convicted for
what he has done and was sentenced to three consecutive life terms.
Seconds before he is taken off to jail and
then to prison from the courtroom, he turns to her and promises that nothing is
over.
Several months later, long after she and
her son, Wyatt, moved to a more secure home high in a Denver tower, and just
when she finally feels like things are going back to a quasi-normal, the terror
of being stalked and a target begins again. It has been a long day in the field
with camera operator and good friend, Tamica Porter, as she sits and goes
through paperwork her teen son brought home from school. Amidst the normal
stuff is a sealed envelope that scares her at the sight of it. She’s moved and
taken drastic measures for privacy. All that seems to have been for naught as
she opens the envelope and finds a single white sheet of paper.
That single white sheet of paper is full
of cryptic sentences very reminiscent what PDQ used to send her. But, he is in
prison, so he can’t be terrorizing her again this way. Or could he? Does the
prison even look at anything he mails out? Or did he have an unknown accomplice?
Or is it one of his cult members drawn to act by the extensive media coverage
of the trial and her role in his capture? Or is it some whack job looking to
impress PDQ? These questions and others terrorize her as it is clear that
somebody got close enough to her son to send a message.
A message that scares her in every fiber
of her being, while at the same time, intrigues and pulls her into another very
high-profile story. A story that could easily get her and others killed. Which
could also be said about some of the other stories she is soon working on,
including the disappearance of a local family of four.
Two Truths and a Lie: A Thriller by Mark Stevens
again takes readers to Denver, the world of journalism, and the debate over
which stories and which victims get media coverage. Published by Thomas &
Mercer, this read is another good one in the series and a bit more intense than
No Lie Lasts Forever. This read builds on that book extensively
and keeps the momentum going as it very clearly sets up a third book in the
series.
Both books are strongly recommended as
is reading them in order. Not only are the stories in the reads strong, but one
is also given plenty to think about regarding actual journalism, the media, and
what goes on these days.
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3NSRghi
By the way, The Poisoned Pen Bookstore
has a recent interview with author Mark
Stevens where he discusses the book. The program is on YouTube here.
My digital ARC reading copy came by way of the publisher, Thomas & Mercer, through NetGalley, with no expectation of a positive review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2026
Friday, March 06, 2026
Monday, March 02, 2026
Friday, January 09, 2026
Wednesday, August 06, 2025
Friday, June 27, 2025
Sunday, June 08, 2025
Thursday, May 15, 2025
Review: No Lie Lasts Forever: A Thriller by Mark Stevens
Mark Steven’s last
book, The
Fireballer, was a very good book. It was very good, even though he
did not have my team, the Texas Rangers, present in the read that much and even
had the wrong team winning the World Series. That book touched on many things,
not just baseball, and like his Allison Coil Mystery series, was a mighty good
read. So, when Mark Sevens let me know he had a new book coming out and offered
me a reading copy, even though with my worsening health and everything else
here I had no idea if I would ever get to read it, I eventually accepted the
offer.
No Lie Lasts Forever:
A Thriller
takes readers to Denver in a complicated tale of mystery, murder, treachery,
and a lot more. Reporter Flynn Martin, a television icon, is our heroine. Her
dad was a legendary newspaper reporter in Denver and the proverbial apple fell
right at the base of that tree. It is supposed to be her day off as the book
opens.
But, her boss has reached out as a gunman is holding hostages and wants a television
reporter to be a go between for him and the police. Flynn was not his choice,
but she is available, and he will accept her as the go between, if she agrees. Even
though these days she is more known for her projects on climate change and
think pieces, she has a long history on the police beat and has many contacts.
Grudgingly, with
lives at stake, she gets involved only to have things go horribly wrong through
no fault of her own. In the violent and deadly aftermath, she takes a lot of
heat internally and publicly from the police and average folks who have an
opinion, shaped by the storm of media coverage at rival networks and elsewhere,
of what she did that fateful day. Suspended and flooded with grief, she would
like to be left alone to cope with what has happened.
Instead, a long
dormant serial killer decides he is going to involve her in his quest to set
the record straight. He wants credit for the three successful, as he sees it,
kills he got away with many years ago and how he has behaved since. He does not
want anyone placing a murder he did not commit on him. PDQ was a legend in
Denver and some believe he is back killing again. He isn’t and wants his legend
intact and not desecrated by an imposter. He is very mad about somebody doing a
very poor job of copying him and wants Flynn to prove it wasn’t him. She is
supposed to do that without involving anyone else whether it be coworkers,
family, or the police.
While the initial
goal of preserving his legacy might have been achievable, his ego drives him,
as it does Flynn, and numerous other people in this read. Mistakes and assumptions
are made and things quite rapidly escalate for everyone. A violent collision was
and is inviable with its own rippling aftermath.
No Lie Lasts Forever: A Thriller by Mark Stevens is one heck of a read. Multifaceted and moving forward at a rapid pace, Flynn finds herself deeper and deeper into a nightmare. It also reinforces my long held personal belief that leaving the house is often a very bad idea in many more ways than one.
Amazon Associate
Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/44zuNMa
My print ARC was
provided by the author with no expectation of a review. As it happens, the read
was selected for the Amazon First Reads this month. That means, until the end
of the month, the digital version of the read is free for Amazon Prime members,
and $1.99 for other readers. Published by Thomas & Mercer, the book comes
out on June 1st.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2025
Saturday, March 29, 2025
Sunday, March 09, 2025
Sunday, January 05, 2025
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