Fourth Down

In 48 short, crackling chapters and an epilogue, veteran football journalist Klein (Blindside) spins a compelling yarn of a football fix gone wrong. New York sportswriter Ed Buck is contacted by his close friend and former college teammate, Adam Benson, now quarterback for the Chicago Bears, who confesses that after his cocaine habit made him desperate for money he got involved with a top-secret gambling ring. Benson has been throwing games to insure big payoffs for the crooks, and, disgusted with his duplicity, he decides to defy the racketeers and play his best against the New York Giants in the next encounter. When Benson dies of what appears to be a heart attack just as the Bears have clinched their win, Buck knows his friend was murdered. With the help of New York police lieutenant Gerry Keegan, a sports psychologist, his girlfriend Leigh and Benson's widow, Sherri, Ed tracks down the murderer and finds him linked to a chain of command leading from merely greedy and seedy racketeers to the mysterious kingpin of a massive crime syndicate. The focus of the book shifts away from football and toward the shady mobster dealings. Sometimes melodramatic, the narrative tears along at such a frantic pace that occasional lapses in plot (e.g., Sherri's serious but conveniently forgotten drug habit) may go undetected. While the crime family scenario gets a bit overheated, Klein's clear prose is most engaging when depicting, with a lightweight, manic touch, the fast lane of professional sports. Players and politicians on the take, and Hollywood hopefuls and thugs on the make, are equally entertaining. (Sept.)