Goodnight Vienna

""Slightly balding, overweight, 30-something Yorkshireman"" and PI-about-town Steve Strong returns in British sports journalist Phil Andrews's sophomore soccer or football, rather mystery, in which the sharp-tongued sleuth must save Mother England's soccer team from disgrace, not to mention considerable danger. The London Times called Own Goals ""a pinch of Chandler, a dash of Nick Hornby,"" and that surprisingly good fusion continues in Goodbye, Vienna, as Steve logs hours as a bodyguard for the coach, a nuisance to the police (who, contrary to his opinion, call the death of a former player suicide) and a bloodhound on the trail of a missing goalie as the World Cup looms and a betting scam rears its ugly head.