Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Dangerous Play by Elise Hart Kipness

After reading the second rip-roaring mystery about sports reporter Kate Green, I would have known without being told that author Elise Hart Kipness was a former sports reporter herself. The book is overflowing with the authentic detail available only to the subject matter expert. Some of the very best parts describe the pressure of live reporting from a dynamic scene while simultaneously coordinating with producers and technical staff back at the broadcasting station. These sections will give readers a new appreciation for live action reporters, who make what they are doing look easy.

The book tells two stories, one about Kate Green the budding soccer star who helped bring an Olympic gold medal home years ago, and the second about an older Kate Green who moved on from the game and turned her experience into a live network sports reporting career. The first thread describes the grueling training Olympic hopefuls and their families endure, and the cutthroat competition among the players for a few coveted places on the final team.

The second thread takes place in the present during the Olympics summer games being hosted in New York, where Kate gets the on-air reporting assignment because the coach of the U.S. soccer team is one of her former Olympics team mates and Kate’s management assumes she will be able to capitalize on the relationship to gain access to the team and exclusive material.

One of the U.S. soccer players is displaying shockingly poor sportsmanship and creating a disruptive locker room, and the media’s focus is on her antics until the body of a former Olympic hopeful from Kate’s playing days is found in the medical treatment area underneath Madison Square Gardens. Both Kate and the U.S. soccer team coach knew the victim well at one point in their lives, and naturally the police assume they had something to do with the death. Not unnaturally Kate decides to investigate on her own.

Kate’s father, who had chosen his law enforcement career over his marriage when Kate’s mother gave him an ultimatum, is active in the investigation and he is Kate’s source for forensic information. So often in amateur sleuth mysteries the nonprofessional relies on a police boyfriend, a device that has been overused, so supplying a parent as an inside source is a refreshing change.

Another good bit is the incident involving the release of false information. While it was pulled within the hour, the release was so deliberately sensational that it spread like wildfire across the Internet and did some damage. Some pointed comments about the media’s responsibility in stopping misinformation instead of chasing ratings were completely on target.

I realized about two-thirds through what the motive for the killing was, which pointed at an obvious culprit but other readers may well not be as jaded as I am. Even so, the strength of this very good mystery is in the portrayal of the cutthroat world of Olympic sports and the similarly vicious ecosphere of network media.

 

·       Publisher: ‎Thomas & Mercer (September 17, 2024)

·       Language: ‎English

·       Paperback: ‎285 pages

·       ISBN-10: ‎1662512686

·       ISBN-13: ‎978-1662512681 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3X7JUqK 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night. 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: January Window by Philip Kerr

Philip Kerr (1956-2018) was the creator of 14 Bernie Gunther historical mysteries. Written between 1988 and 2018, the series about a private investigator in Nazi Berlin won awards and critical acclaim for quality of plotting, writing, and research.   

Not so well known is the fact that Kerr was a huge fan of the London Arsenal professional football team, soccer in the U.S. So much so that he created a fictional competitor football team named London City and gave it a coach named Scott Manson, a former footballer who featured in three books about the team. In the first one, January Window (Head of Zeus, 2014), the sport is deeply immersed in the January window, the period in which new players are added to team rosters. Money and contracts are waved about with abandon as prime players are sought to bolster a team’s chances at the playoffs.

The team manager João Zarco is a colorful character, also a former football player and well-known for his larger-than-life persona. For him to disappear on the day of a major game was unheard of. When his body is found later that day in an isolated part of the stadium, the football world was staggered. He appeared to have been beaten to death. Questions of motive and of access to the stadium preoccupy the police, which narrows their focus to Zarco’s business associates. The team owner, a Russian named Viktor Sokolnikov, is worried about the general fishing expedition that seems underway in the guise of a police investigation. His own business affairs won’t necessarily bear official scrutiny. He offers Scott the temporary manager position with a substantial increase in pay and the proviso of making it permanent if he can locate Zarco’s killer and forestall a close review of Sokolnikov’s activities.

This story is a riveting read, even though I did not understand the football jargon and most of the English pop culture allusions were useless on a native Hoosier like me. Some I understood by context, some I ignored, and some I looked up. Real-life football professional teams and players are mixed with fictional ones. I caught a couple of inside jokes and I expect there are others. The plot resolution is deviously contrived and well hidden in a flurry of misdirection. Highly recommended, especially for football (soccer) fans.

·         Publisher: ‎ Head of Zeus (January 1, 2014)

·         Language: ‎ English

·         ISBN-10: ‎ 1784081531

·         ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1784081539

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2021

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Congrats USA Soccer Women!

Awesome job and what a great win!