Caught in a rundown

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Two dissimilar baseball wives play hardball with the thugs who are out to get them in this female buddy caper. Jewel Averick, black, self-absorbed and devious, is outraged when her husband, the star center fielder of the Washington Diamonds, spends $15,000 to purchase the glove of "Two Mile" McLemore, a legendary player in the Negro Leagues who mysteriously disappeared in 1939. But her anger is replaced by a wary curiosity when she finds a cryptic message, maybe written by the missing player, inside the glove. Determined to follow the note's clues, she enlists the aid of mousy and browbeaten Dee Sweet (wife of the Diamonds' second baseman), who desperately needs a respite from her overbearing husband and three demanding children. The women, emboldened by their decision to follow what seems to be a scavenger hunt, have scarcely deciphered the first clue when they realize that they are being followed by two hulking but inept thugs who seem to be after them and the clues. The comic chase leads up and down the East coast, from retirement home to ballpark to cemetery, with an array of amusing antics that illuminate baseball's lesser-known history. Featuring two mettlesome ladies backed up by an eager and talented bench of co-players, this energetic tale, while formulaic, keeps its secrets well and is a promising debut for Saxton. (Aug.)

Library Journal

Jewel Averick and Dee Sweet have little in common except marital difficulties with their rich, baseball-playing husbands. Jewel throws a fit when her husband pays fifteen grand for an historic baseball glove, but hidden in it she finds a paper that starts her and Dee on a dangerous quest to cities that had teams in the Negro League. As the two chase clues, pursued by several sleazy hoods, they alternately embarrass, alienate, and protect their husbands. While uneven in tone, inconsistent in character, and short on setting, this first effort may yet succeed on the strength of plot. Still, a marginal purchase.

Kirkus Reviews

Even though D.C. Diamonds star center-fielder, Russell Averick, is rolling in dough, his wife Jewel can't understand why he'd spend $15,000 for his latest bit of memorabilia—a baseball glove that once belonged, not to Hank Aaron or Josh Gibson, but to Two-Mile McLemore, who barnstormed in the Negro Leagues (if he even existed) for a bare year back in the 1930s. So it seems like a perfect revenge for Jewel to sell the glove to Anthony Graves, a rival collector who comes to the door with a cock-and-bull story about his ailing son's fondest wish and a very real $20,000. But when Jewel decides to put some extra spin on her revenge by switching gloves on Graves, she plunges herself and her friend Deanna Sweet, long-suffering wife of Diamonds second baseman Mark Sweet, into adventure. Unbeknownst to Russell, Two- Mile's glove carries the first of seven clues to a fabulous treasure Graves and his ethically-challenged boss are determined to grab for themselves. The baseball wives' treasure hunt swiftly turns into a competitive event, in addition to a whirlwind tour of Negro League cities—Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, New York—that might as well be angling for a slot in Black History Month. But why do Jewel and Dee keep getting such contradictory descriptions of Two-Mile? And how could he have planted the doggerel clues they're following years after he died?

A sprightly, undemanding debut that seems perfect for a two- hour TV pilot, complete with savory minor characters, great locations, and love conquering all.