It would be easy for the sleuthing of these two eighth graders to violate the perimeters of plausibility, but John Feinstein doesn't take those shortcuts and hope his young readers won't know the difference every lead that Stevie and Susan Carol follow is legitimately earned and has to be conceivable for a pair of thirteen-year-olds to dig up using only their own wits as they investigate a story that could blow big-time college sports apart. He writes intriguing, flavorful characters, not settling for paper dolls to inhabit the clever mystery he's created Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson are realistic kids with genuine motivations, who require time to warm up to each other before they can effectively coalesce to take on corruption among the elite in an organization as powerful as the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

He knows how to structure a mystery with plot twists guaranteed to keep readers off balance. (Feb.)įYI: The novel's final page announces a sports-oriented writing contest, the winner of which will receive a trip to the 2005 NCAA men's Final Four championship game.The storytelling talents of John Feinstein, author of 1986's classic sports memoir A Season on the Brink: A Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers, translate well for the youth set. Young basketball fans will most appreciate the caper, but mystery buffs will also turn these pages eagerly. The minimal on-court action is nonetheless dramatic and briskly paced. As Stevie and Susan Carol team up with Chip to uncover the intricacies of the blackmail plan-and to try to foil it-the author's plotting entails some fancy footwork that will keep readers on their toes. Though they can't see the culprit during this conversation, it takes the youngsters no time at all to identify him as a member of MSU's faculty-ironically, an ethics professor. Yet the pace picks up when Feinstein casts the two aspiring young sports journalists in additional roles of sleuths: the pair overhears a man blackmailing Chip Graber, the star player (and son of the coach) of the Minnesota State team to throw the championship game against Duke. The story starts slowly with some superfluous dialogue and a surfeit of detail about specific players, coaches, sports writers and announcers. Taking center court is 13-year-old Stevie, who-along with Susan Carol, another eighth grader-landed tickets and press passes to the weekend's games by winning a writing contest sponsored by the U.S.

) novel set during a Final Four basketball tournament in New Orleans. Sports and mystery get equal play in sportswriter and adult author Feinstein's ( A Season on the Brink

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