Pickoff

Hutchinson again successfully recreates the world of old-time baseball in his third America’s Pastime crime novel (after 2020’s Dead Ball: A Novel of Murder and Passion). In 1927, Baltimore Beacons catcher Joe Rath is at a crossroads in his professional and personal life. After Joe, a superior defensive player with a rocket of an arm, is benched for a new power-hitting teammate, he contemplates requesting a trade, though he doubts his wife, who already resents his being away from home for road games, would be happy moving, especially with their one-year-old son. With his mind preoccupied during a road trip, Joe allows two teammates to take him to a Chicago speakeasy, where he’s smitten by a torch singer, Amie Dawes. The guilt that induces is exacerbated when he learns Amie is considered the property of a gangster, and his efforts to help her result in a murder. Hutchinson never loses sight of his lead’s flaws, making engagement with his vicissitudes easy. Fans of Robert Goldsborough’s Three Strikes You’re Dead will be pleased. (Self-published)