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Do you ever find yourself reading a book with a big fat grin on your face and nodding vigorously like one of those dogs on the back shelves of cars? Well, that was me with Steve Brewer's END RUN. What I know about American football and baseball can be written on the back of a postage stamp (with enough room left for the Complete Works of Shakespeare), but I can assure you that if Brewer's hero Drew Gavin and the Albuquerque Gazette are anything to go by, sports desks are obviously the same the world over. I don't know if Brewer knows anything about rugby or soccer, but he'd find plenty to identify with on UK papers I've worked on: "He thought of his workmates -- with the exception of Curtis -- as the Dwarves. They were mostly small men who'd spent their lives watching sports rather than playing them. And they all answered to nicknames that ended in 'y' . . ." Drew's a sports reporter who has seen better days. He never quite made it as a sports star after making his name for the University of Mexico football team and is now on the other side of the fence. His life is in a rut and he knows it. But it's all turned upside down when he meets college sweetheart Helen Graham at a match. Helen flutters her eyelashes and persuades Drew to help out her husband Freddie, who is in debt to bookmaker Three Eyes Sanchez and needs more time to find the cash. So far, so pretty standard -- beautiful woman ensnares our hero and begs his help. And there's a goodly contingent of baddies standing in his way. But Drew's rather appealing innocence and Brewer's sparky prose makes this a must-read. I read this book in one sitting, blithely ignoring the doorbell and the telephone. The cast of supporting characters is tremendous. My favourites were Drew's smart-mouthed colleague Curtis White and Goth news reporter Teresa Vargas. And there's also Drew's father Chuck, confined to a nursing home after a stroke, but still with a razor-sharp mind. I loved the newspaper scenes the best, but then that's me. For everyone else, who may not be quite so ga-ga about the industry, there's plenty more there to enjoy, especially if you are a fan of Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar series. I reckon this book will be on my end of year top 10 list.
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, August 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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