Detective Fiction, Sports - Fiction, Occupations - Fiction, Other Mystery Categories
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Overview
Tiger Stadium, the house of Ty Cobb and Al Kaline, Trammell and Whitaker and the Bless You, Boys, is in flames. Detroit's eighty-year-old iron lady of columns and overhangs burns like a torched tenement on Devil's Night. News of the blaze sears the souls of Tiger fans the world over, yet it warms the heart and pocketbook of an unpopular team owner, a chicken and pasta tycoon, who has long wanted to abandon the old ballpark in favor of a synthetic, suite-filled multiplex. Watching the inferno - "struck dumb at the sight of it" - on a sidewalk at Michigan Avenue and Cochrane Street is veteran sportswriter and ballpark sleuth Duffy House. For Duffy, the stadium fire is yet another hammer blow to the city he knew and enjoyed starting back in the days of Charley Gehringer and Hank Greenberg. "This is Detroit," he is told early on. "Illusions went out with the Corvair." When fire investigators confirm evidence of arson, Duffy and his irreverent niece and co-gumshoe, Petey, are assigned by the commissioner of baseball to sift the stadium's ashes in search of the front-office collusion. Their task turns morbid when the murdered body of Katherine "Kit" Gleason, a suburban social lioness and head of a grass-roots stadium preservation organization, is discovered in the debris. Seen with Gleason in her last hours is Al Shaw, current Tiger superstar and former inmate of the state penitentiary at Jackson. Details of their stormy affair not only rock Detroit but threaten to send the slugger back to the slammer. In a case that goes from hot to scalding, Duffy and Petey must deal with arson and murder, and whether or not the two are connected. All this is set against the stark, racially charged atmosphere of Detroit, an embattled city that wants to turn its vacant lots into pastureland, and the leafy old-money suburbs of Grosse Pointe and Dearborn. At times, it seems that a love for the Tigers is the only thing they have in common. In uncovering how misguided that love has becoEditorials
Publishers Weekly -
The adventures of retired Chicago sportswriter Duffy House, last seen in Fear in Fenway , usually begin with Duffy being dispatched by his pal the commissioner to a ballpark where crimes are afoot and where Duffy's brains and his niece Petey's tireless (and well-turned) legs can save the day. This time Duffy's too late for the ballpark; Detroit's Tiger Stadium is aflame, perhaps as part of the Devil's Night mayhem that besets the Motor City once a year. Found dead in the wreckage is Kit Gleason, a Grosse Pointe matron and leader in the campaign to save the old park from the wrecker's ball; missing is a player, former drunk Al Shaw. Lined up against Kit and her team of preservationist agitators are two characters who, like most of the cast in this winning series, seem a lot like real life folks: the owner of the Tigers franchise, a fried chicken tycoon, and the manager, a volatile former college basketball coach. Baseball buffs and mystery lovers are the winners here as Duffy conjures up ghosts sporting the gothic D on their white uniforms while chasing the plot's sharp curves. Action and crackling dialogue, principally between the anachronistic Duffy and the spunky Petey, distinguish this series co-written pseudonymously by William Brashler and Reinder Vant Til. (Mar.)Wes Lukowsky
Retired sportswriter Duffy House is back solving murders for his old pal, Commissioner of Baseball Grand Chambliss. Aided by his irrepressible niece, Petey, Duffy goes to Detroit at the request of Jim Casey, recently fired Tiger broadcaster who ran afoul of team management by supporting a group of fans dedicated to the preservation of venerable Tiger Stadium. There's money to be made with a new park, though, and the team's management is not above greasing a few official palms to get their suburban monstrosity built. Just as Duffy and Petey begin their investigation into the shady doings, the head of the Save Our Stadium group is murdered. Destroy the opposition and their cause in one fell swoop, Duffy figures. But it's never simple. Kit Gleason, the murder victim, was having an affair with the Tigers' best player, and complicating matters further, the team's owners seem to have bedded down with organized crime. As always in this series, expect liberal doses of humor, baseball trivia, and local color, all delivered via Duffy's snappy, smart-alecky first-person narration.Book Details
Published
March 1, 1994
Publisher
William Morrow & Co
Pages
246
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780688114695