Murder at Fenway Park

by Troy Soos

Book Overview

Delightful. . .mixing suspense, period detail that will leave readers eager for subsequent innings. -- Publishers Weekly Red Sox Rookie Knocks 'Em Dead It's 1912, the golden age: Fenway just opened,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0821745182
• ISBN13: 9780821745182
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Zebra Books
• Length: 252 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.3" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

A satisfying summer read

I like baseball, I like historical fiction, and I like murder mysteries. This book is an enjoyable combination of all three of those. As you have probably gathered by now, the protagonist is a baseball player in 1912 who has just joined the Boston Red Sox. Just as he arrives at Fenway Park, he stumbles across a body -- and his adventures begin. There are several things that make this story work. One of them is that Our Hero isn't impressively intelligent. He's realistically drawn, and he makes realistically dumb mistakes. The author also does a good job of capturing the sensibilities of the era outside the news headlines (such as the Titanic sinking); Mickey likes those newfangled movies, even if he has to sneak to see them because the baseball pros are concerned that the flickering lights are bad for his eyes. And I had been unaware of the Highlanders, who played in a baseball stadium in New Jersey in which attendees walked across the field to get to-and-from their seats. There's just enough baseball to make the story fun for the casual fan (Go Diamondbacks!), without making the reader drown in statistics or who-did-what at the plate. Some of the characters are famous names that you'll recognize -- such as Ty Cobb, who apparently was a real jerk even if he was a great baseball player. I found the history charming rather than tedious (I'm not one for reciting baseball history). The mystery -- who did it? -- is good but not astonishing. However, the rest of the book is so much fun that I didn't mind in the least. If you're looking for a summer beach read, this would be a heck of a good choice.

A home run

Troy Soos has started a wonderful series with this first installment of the Mickey Rawlings mysteries. The combination of the early 1900s time period, the freshness of a young kid new to the big leagues, and a murder intertwined with baseball is great. It is an easy and quick read. The setting plays a big part of the appeal of this mystery novel--which Soos masterfully creates. The mystery/plot is believable and does keep the reader in suspense. I eagerly await each installment of this series. Soos writing seems to get progressively better.

Charming start

There is just the right mixture of baseball, mayhem, and 1921 events to make a fine book. The author's subsequent baseball mysteries are a little better, but this one certainly satisies. Of course, if you're not a baseball fan, this may leave you a little cold--no pun about death intended.

Magnificent

This is one of the best novels I've read in my life! I bought it in New England, thinking that Soos must be a local writer. He captured the essence of New England at the turn of the century.Any serious baseball fan has to read this book while on a trip to Boston (which must, of course, include a trip to Fenway!)Bravo, Mr. Soos!

Easy to read and hard to put down

By using a baseball player as a detective, Troy Soos, gives us the possibility of finding the murder together with him, because his hero is nothing special and the lines of thought are very common. Different from other detective books, in which the authors try to create a very difficult line of thinking to make the hero look greater than an normal human being, Mickey the hero of Troy is just that: A Normal Human Being.