Hanging Curve: A Mickey Rawlings Baseball Mystery
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

All St. Louis Browns utility infielder Mickey Rawlings wanted was a few extra at-bats and a chance to get into the 1922 World Series. But when he agrees to appear as a ringer for a semipro team in a game against a local Negro League club, and the KKK causes a riot that leads to the Negro squad's star pitcher being lynched, Mickey finds himself working with a black attorney, Franklin Aubrey, to unmask the hooded killers. Through the course of his investigation, Mickey learns plenty about the racial conflict that divides the Mississippi River city, and he also finds that certain unsavory individuals are capable of using society's ills for their own gain. The sixth Mickey Rawlings mystery is the strongest in the series. He is growing as a character while he ages as a ballplayer, and his romance with former actress Margie is sweet by modern standards yet scandalous for its time. Soos delivers a richly atmospheric journey through time with Rawlings serving as an engaging guide. --Wes Lukowsky

Flappers, jazz and Prohibition are often used to evoke the hedonistic 1920s, but Rawlings discovers different hallmarksÄ black baseball, the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow and lynchingsÄfor his fine new mystery, which doubles as a cultural and political history. Peripatetic ballplayer Mickey Rawlings carries bat, glove and sleuthing skills from Cincinnati (where he played in his most recent outing, The Cincinnati Red Stalkings) to join the American League's St. Louis Browns for their 1922 season. Using an assumed name to hide his major league identity because of organized baseball's ban on interracial games, Rawlings plays with the semi-pro Elcars against the Negro East St. Louis Cubs as a lark. An ugly confrontation during the game is prologue to the later lynching of the Cubs' star player. Spurred by fear that the volatile situation could lead to a repeat of the terrible race riots of 1917, which left hundreds (mostly blacks) dead in East St. Louis, Rawlings tries to figure out who is behind the murder. In the process, he learns and reveals much about the grim realities behind baseball's ban on black players and also much about himself. Though filled with glimpses of baseball greats from both races and hinging on a well-constructed case of murder, this novel stands out particularly for its skillfully drawn background and intelligent use of historical and social detail. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Journeyman infielder Mickey Rawlings's biggest innings have always been off the field, and it's no surprise that his sixth season (The Cincinnati Red Stalkings, 1998, etc.) will take him away from his current team, the St. Louis Browns. This time out, he's to play as a ringer against the Negro League's East St. Louis Cubs'and against the KKK and a city still sporting the five-year-old scars of the murderous race riots of 1917. (Author tour)

All St. Louis Browns utility infielder Mickey Rawlings wanted was a few extra at-bats and a chance to get into the 1922 World Series. But when he agrees to appear as a ringer for a semipro team in a game against a local Negro League club, and the KKK causes a riot that leads to the Negro squad's star pitcher being lynched, Mickey finds himself working with a black attorney, Franklin Aubrey, to unmask the hooded killers. Through the course of his investigation, Mickey learns plenty about the racial conflict that divides the Mississippi River city, and he also finds that certain unsavory individuals are capable of using society's ills for their own gain. The sixth Mickey Rawlings mystery is the strongest in the series. He is growing as a character while he ages as a ballplayer, and his romance with former actress Margie is sweet by modern standards yet scandalous for its time. Soos delivers a richly atmospheric journey through time with Rawlings serving as an engaging guide. ((Reviewed August 1999)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

This is a significant step up from the previous five books in Soos's Mickey Rawlings series amiable mysteries centering around baseball circa 1910-1921. Rawlings, a much-traded utility infielder, helps solve mysteries at the old classic baseball fields. In this far more serious novel, Soos takes on both endemic racism in baseball and the burgeoning Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s. Rawlings gets angry when a first-class pitcher from the Negro Leagues (who'd struck Rawlings out once or twice) is found hanged. Was it a lynching? Working with a white anti-Klan activist and a black lawyer, he noses around the white guys on the semipro team he thinks might have been involved and discovers the origins of the murder in East St. Louis's vicious race riots of 1918. More than a mystery, this is also a story of a deepening respect and understanding among good men of different races. Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Univ. Lib., Davenport, IA Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Flappers, jazz and Prohibition are often used to evoke the hedonistic 1920s, but Rawlings discovers different hallmarks black baseball, the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow and lynchings for his fine new mystery, which doubles as a cultural and political history. Peripatetic ballplayer Mickey Rawlings carries bat, glove and sleuthing skills from Cincinnati (where he played in his most recent outing, The Cincinnati Red Stalkings) to join the American League's St. Louis Browns for their 1922 season. Using an assumed name to hide his major league identity because of organized baseball's ban on interracial games, Rawlings plays with the semi-pro Elcars against the Negro East St. Louis Cubs as a lark. An ugly confrontation during the game is prologue to the later lynching of the Cubs' star player. Spurred by fear that the volatile situation could lead to a repeat of the terrible race riots of 1917, which left hundreds (mostly blacks) dead in East St. Louis, Rawlings tries to figure out who is behind the murder. In the process, he learns and reveals much about the grim realities behind baseball's ban on black players and also much about himself. Though filled with glimpses of baseball greats from both races and hinging on a well-constructed case of murder, this novel stands out particularly for its skillfully drawn background and intelligent use of historical and social detail. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.