No Exit Press - Double Play by Robert B Parker

ABOUT THE BOOK

It is 1947, the year Jackie Robinson breaks major-league baseball's colour barrier by playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers - and changes the world. This is the story of that season, as told through the eyes of a difficult, brooding, and wounded man named Joseph Burke. Burke, a veteran of World War II and a survivor of Guadalcanal, is hired by Brooklyn Dodgers manager Branch Rickey to guard Robinson. While Burke shadows Robinson, a man of tremendous strength and character suddenly thrust into the media spotlight, the bodyguard must also face some hard truths of his own, in a world where the wrong associations can prove fatal.

Parker fans will recognize many of the author's lifelong themes (honour and the redemptive power of love), and in Burke there are very real echoes of Parker's strongest character, Spenser. Coupled with the historical background of Jackie Robinson Parker has produced not only a great and gripping crime novel but also one of the most evocative baseball novels ever written.

RELATED FEATURES

Robert B. Parker interview on Double Play

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

"...Parker fashions a hugely entertaining fiction that also serves as a blueprint for the themes that preoccupy him as a writer and the code of values that sustains his work...." - Marilyn Stasio, New York Times

"...Double Play is a quick and accessible read, it is also an engaging one..." - Edward Smith, The Telegraph

"...a masterful recreation of a turbulent era that's not only a great and gripping crime novel but also one of the most evocative baseball novels ever written...." - Publishers Weekly

"...fans will not be disappointed with DOUBLE PLAY, it is worth reading for its quiet yet forthright historical value alone..." - Joe Hartlaub, bookreporter.com

"...The talk is electric, the pacing breakneck, the cast colorful and empathic.... Parker flat out nails it here. ..." - Kirkus Reviews

"...Parker's latest is another example of his courage to try new things...." - Ron Kaplan, bookreporter.com

"...At the age of 72, more than 40 years since publication of his first book, best-selling mystery writer Robert B. Parker has written his finest novel...." - Bruce DeSilva, Messenger-Inquirer

"...this book has the excitement, the zest for life, the thoughtfulness that his earlier books possessed. It is truly a very fine book...." - Sally Fellows, reviewingtheevidence.com

"...a historical novel that stands with his most personal work...." - Richard Dyer, boston.com