Game 7: Dead Ball [NOOK Book]

Wow give me more!

You don't even have to like baseball to enjoy this book. It surrounds the players lives with murder, mystery, kidnapping, and gambling debts! Marshall an umpire, his best friend Thomas an ex cia spy, Terry a player with Dad Michael an ex player are connected in this thriller! It all comes to a head during the World Series game. Can't wait for the next in the series to see what Marshall and Thomas deal with!

Suspense and intrigue on the baseball diamond - excellent read

I'm going to preface this review by saying I am a diehard Phillies fan, and the '08 World Series win was one of the best nights (or two, if you know what I mean.rain.) in memory. The plot summary of Allen Schatz's Game 7: Dead Ball sounded like an interesting story, but the fact that it takes place during that series made it a must buy. But what I found was that the story itself drew me in far more than the teams playing. As a matter of fact, I was so into the plot and characters, I glossed right over mentions of the games themselves.

Game 7: Dead Ball follows the lives of childhood friends who have all gone in different directions since their college days. The main character, Marshall Connors, is called in to umpire the World Series because of the medical status another, and now must deal with umpiring for old friends. However the plot isn't centered around Connors' reluctance to call a ball outside on the Phillies' star pitcher - rather, it's the life and death situation he's put in by murders and kidnapping.

I won't get too in depth into the plot - several other reviews online do an excellent job of it, as does Schatz's book description. I'd just like to praise the writing style, the plot line, the deep characters, realistic dialogue, suspenseful chapter endings, fantastic local scenery (being from near the Philly area, I can see Schatz knows Philly as well), and thrilling conclusion.

One thing I do want to make an important note about: Game 7: Dead Ball was one of the cleanest, most well-written works I've seen to date from an independent author. Schatz has not only crafted an excellent story line with lifelike characters, but he's done it sans typos and awkward sentences, something that always pulls me out of a story. Here? Nothing of the sort. The only possible negative I can even remotely think of is that Schatz introduces main characters that all have significant roles in the story, and I sometimes lost track of them. Then again, perhaps because of my own work situation and not being able to read it straight through (took several weeks), that's my own fault for losing track!

Game 7: Dead Ball was one of the best novels I've read all year, and I've already picked up Schatz's sequel, 7th Inning Death, which picks up with Marshall Connors again.

Highly recommended for all suspense, mystery, and most especially, baseball fans. A no-brainer for the price of a venti latte.seriously.

Check it out!!

This book travels in your mind until you are completely captivated. I thought at first that it was just about baseball...mistake number one. It's a mystery that will have you guessing until the very end. I recommend it highly.





Linda Eble Swain

No Longer Just a Game

There may be other novels featuring baseball umpires as lead characters, but I haven't read one. It sounds almost like an exercise in a creative writing class: Set the person who is supposed to remain invisible at the center of a story involving love and hate, success and failure, excitement and tragedy. Author Allen Schatz has done that and done it well. For a good portion of Game 7: Dead Ball, protagonist Marshall Connors knows he's in the middle of a life-or-death situation. He just doesn't know whose or what to do about it. Chosen to umpire the World Series as a surprise replacement for the crew chief who apparently suffered a heart attack, Connors must call balls and strikes on his boyhood friend Terry O'Hara, the ace of the Philadelphia Phillies pitching staff, and Terry's former USC teammate Nik Sanchez, catcher for the Tampa Bay Rays. Terry and Nik's relationship was ruined long ago and now is defined only by animus. A third Trojan teammate, AJ Singer, had an affair with Terry's mother, and when her husband discovered it, things got very ugly for all involved. As the Series bounces between Florida and Pennsylvania, millions of fans watch the games on television unaware of the real drama swirling around Marshall Connors. Notes are surreptitiously delivered to him at home plate; meaningful looks are thrown by league security men, and an old-fashioned baseball "message" is delivered by catcher Sanchez - a fastball allowed to blast Marshall in the facemask. Between games, though, Marshall manages to work in a little romance and tries to help his friend Thomas Hillsborough, an ex-CIA spook who is sort of a law-enforcement-stud-without-portfolio, figure out what's going on. You might expect a mystery involving a baseball umpire in the World Series to center on fixing games. Schatz happily has chosen to go in a less obvious direction. Without giving away the plot, the crimes here include serial murder, kidnapping, extortion, and felony battery. Throw in the inter-generational adultery and some unpaid gambling debts, and you've got lots of reasons for people not to like each other. Game 7 has a huge cast of characters - FBI agents, Major League Baseball officials, ball players, bad guys, innocent victims, and umpires among them. It is to Schatz's credit as a writer that they're reasonably easy to keep straight. If you like baseball and thrillers, Game 7: Dead Ball is a must read. Even those who are only so-so on the national pastime but enjoy complicated plots with well-drawn characters will find Game 7 most satisfying.

Very good book!

Amazing story with very well developed characters! The story revolves around baseball, but isn't a sports story. A well rounded mystery, and gripping details make you wonder if it could happen. Wonderful debut book!

No text was provided for this review.