Publisher's Weekly Review
The extraordinary novella by thriller king David Baldacci that leads off this exceptional anthology of new fiction centered on crime and football is alone worth the book's cover price. "The Mighty Johns" is one of the more remarkable stories ever written on a sports theme, boasting an array of original plot spins infusing quantum physics (e.g., Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the possibility of time warp) into this tale of a college football player's investigation into the disappearance of another college pigskin star decades earlier. Every Baldacci fan will want to read "The Mighty Johns," and they'll be joined by legions of others, because veteran editor Penzler has put together a team of authors that's simply all-star. Colin Harrison and Dennis Lehane contribute "Good Seats" and "Gone Down to Corpus," respectively, the former a fluid if hard-bitten tale of vengeance, the latter a powerfully moody tale of alienated youth (varsity players). There's a superb offering from Anne Perry, "The End of Innocence," set in a small English village on the eve of WWI. This story imagines a rugby match (fairly chosen as the English counterpart to American football) as a backdrop to murder, delivering an indelible evocation of a peaceful corner of the world shadowed by war. Legendary PI writer James Crumley tells a mordant tale of a former player, now a loser, who turns to bank robbery, in "Semi-Pro," while another mystery great, Lawrence Block, turns in the nicely black-humored "The Ehrengraf Reverse." Bestselling authors Brad Meltzer (with the clever, MIT-set "The Empire Strikes Back") and Tim Green also take the field, the former pro baller with "Whatever It Takes to Win," with tough-minded PI (former player) action that's perhaps Green's most accomplished writing yet. Mike Lupica, Brendan DuBois, John Westermann, Peter Robinson, Carol O'Connell and Gary Phillips round out the players in the most exciting sports fiction anthology in years. (June) Forecast: New Millennium should score a touchdown on bestseller lists with this dazzling anthology, which will appeal not only to the authors' myriad fans but also to literate football lovers. The publisher is backing the volume with a $200,000 ad/promo campaign. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
In the title story of this collection of three sports-related mysteries, Baldacci offers a physics-loving college football player's investigation into the mysterious disappearance 40 years earlier of his school's most celebrated star. His solution to the mystery has unexpected consequences. Baldacci's combination of science, philosophy, football mythology, and murder is intriguing but long-winded. It might have had more impact at half the length. In Meltzer's "The Empire Strikes Back," a group of MIT students attempt a prank during the Harvard-Yale football game. This trite, tricky tale lacks character development. Scott Brick reads these two works quite effectively. Perry's superb "The End of Innocence," performed by Martin Jarvis, who gives his usual excellent performance, is the best of the three. This account of a murder during a village rugby match on the eve of World War I reverberates with moral dilemmas. Recommended for popular collections.-Michael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
