Murderer's Row

Late one night, Rupert Huston, the Steinbrenner-like owner of the New York Yankees, is shot by a sniper as he communes with team greats memorialized in the part of Yankee Stadium known as Death Valley. Baseball commissioner Granville Chambliss calls in his favorite amateur sleuths--Duffy House, the retired Chicago sportswriter, and his beautiful, bright niece, ``Petey'' Biggers--who together solved the Murder in Wrigley Field , Evers's first mystery. This case is particularly difficult, in some degreepk because everyone seems to have had a motive to kill Huston. His scheming wife, modeled after Leona Helmsley, and spoiled children hated him. The local Mafia chieftain (read: John Gotti) can't forgive the man for driving the Yanks into the ground. And to complicate matters for Duffy, Petey falls in love with brilliant Yankees general manager John Brush, who hopes that with Huston gone, he can rebuild the ``greatest sports franchise in the world.'' The pseudonymous Evers (actually two writers) provides a fast-paced, fun story, with lots of Yankees trivia and New York atmosphere thrown in. The only reservation: the solution parallels that of Murder in Wrigley Field . (July)