This is another baseball book. In fact, this author and David Stinton, the author of Deadball, which I reviewed a few months ago, know each other well. He even wrote the review that’s on the back cover. And like Deadball, it’s about minor league baseball. That’s about where the similarities end.

Mr. Stinton is a good writer. The world he creates is not real, but it is consistent within its on world. The characters behave like reasonable people. On the other hand, neither Matt Kastel’s story nor his characters are plausible. He also leaves loose ends.

The story begins 25 years, almost to the day, after a gruesome murder. It was the daughter of the manager of the town’s minor league ball club. Turns out, she may not be dead after all. Everyone involved has something to lose if all the details of that night come to light, their lives will be ruined. But there’s nothing that bad. Yeah, they’d be embarrassed and some people will think less of them, maybe even stop hanging out with them, but that’s it. But nothing to kill for, yet the bodies keep piling up. There is one guy who has a lot to lose, but he’s not killing anyone and no one’s trying to kill him.

A great former player is blackmailed and arranges a beat down for the guy, delivered by himself, a friend, and two young gang bangers. He ends up stabbing the guy to death, but there are no consequences and he goes on to accept an incredible job offer and start a wonderful new life.

When you find out whodunnit, the bad guy holds two of the good guys at gunpoint, but doesn’t shoot them until he has told them the entire story. And there are so many more implausible twists. The groundskeeper is the bad guys cousin, so their DNA can be confused for each others. The manager’s daughter just happened to go missing earlier in that same day that the bad guy kills his wife’s sister during rough sex and uses her body to substitute for the daughter’s. And just happens to know that the daughter disappeared that day, even though her own father didn’t know. And the list goes on.

There are certain bits of information the author must work into his story. But it’s not supposed to be obvious that that’s what he’s doing, the way it is here

The premise is a set up for a great murder mystery. But this book isn’t it.