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Drew Gavin was a college football star who was once headed for the NFL until his ankles gave out. Now he's a sports reporter in his home town of Albuquerque, a depressing business when the local college football team insists on losing most of it's games. Drew runs into an old flame at a football game and she asks for his help after her husband is murdered. When Drew takes the opportunity to spice up his life a little he finds himself in a whole heap of trouble. The police want to pin the murder on Drew, the dead man's bookie wants to recover a small fortune in losing sports bets, and he's been suspended from the job that he loves. End Run is the first of a new series for Brewer and marks quite a change of direction from his often hilarious Bubba Mabry PI books. End Run is much darker in tone, although the wacky humour still pokes it's head up occasionally. Most importantly, though, the fast pacing and the excellent characterisation are retained. A great book needs 'good' bad guys and the bookie and his enforcers are a trio that you can love to hate. They come the closest to the wackiness of Brewers earlier books, but the damage that they do is very real, and that makes the suspense elements work well. The newspaper's sports reporting team are central characters, and they're a diverse group full of mostly likeable people, and I'm keen to meet them all again. Drew is tied to Albuquerque by his father, a former football coach who is now a stroke victim, but still takes a keen interest in his son's career. Drew's visits to his father are among the most poignant and thought provoking moments of the book. Finally Drew himself is a fine character with plenty of depth and growth potential. Football is obviously a major theme of End Run, and I enjoyed the way that Drew was able to use a variety of old moves against his opponents. This book's pacing is fast enough to make an end run past the best defensive line in the NFL, I devoured the 314 pages in a single day. Brewer knows how to move a plot along, there's always something happening and it really is very hard to put the book down when unimportant things like work want to intrude. The entangling of the various plot elements and their eventual coming together and resolution remind me of some of the best caper stories, but End Run has the added bonus of a good mystery. Perhaps the only failing, though, is that the murderer is too easy to spot, and some of the plot elements are a bit predictable. I knew whodunnit within a few pages of the murder, but that's only one of the plot lines, and Brewer's story telling ability is certainly good enough to still hold my interest for the whole book. Steve Brewer is my favourite New Mexico author, and I highly recommend End Run as a fast and entertaining read.
Reviewed by Paul Richmond, November 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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