Strike Three You're Dead [Paperback]

The Providence Jewels, an American League expansion team, have been taking a beating all season. Worse, relief pitcher Rudy Furth has just suffered a beating of a more lethal kind—and been left to die in the clubhouse whirlpool among whispers of mob corruption and violently lovesick fans.

 

When the police investigation stalls, veteran Providence center fielder Harvey Blissberg, who knew Furth as well as anyone, decides to play detective. While trying to keep his eye on the ball, and his head above water with the spunky, beautiful sports newscaster Mickey Slavin, Blissberg quietly stalks Furth’s killer through major-league locker rooms and the dark streets of Rhode Island’s capital city. Lots of ballplayers keep their batting averages above .300—but how many have chased a murderer at the same time?

 

 

 

R. D. Rosen’s writing career spans mystery novels, narrative nonfiction, humor books, and television.Strike Three You’re Dead, the first in Rosen’s series featuring major league baseball player Harvey Blissberg, won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America in 1985. Blissberg’s adventures continued in four sequels, includingFadeaway(1986) andSaturday Night Dead(1988), which drew on Rosen’s stint as a writer forSaturday Night Live.

 

Rosen’s three nonfiction books includePsychobabble(1979), inspired by the term he coined, andA Buffalo in the House: The True Story of a Man, an Animal, and the American West(2007). Over the past decade, he co-created and co-wrote a bestselling series of humor books:Bad Cat,Bad Dog,Bad Baby, andBad President.