March 31, 1997
It's 1920, WWI is over and the world is getting back to "normalcy." Mickey Rawlings, the journeyman utility infielder last seen in Murder at Wrigley Field, has been dealt from the Chicago Cubs to the Detroit Tigers. After breaking his arm in spring training, he ends up at a Wobblies meeting where he finds the fatally shot body of Emmett Siever, an ex-major leaguer who had been trying to organize a players union. The next day, the newspapers credit Rawlings with the killing, described as self-defense. Pretty soon, the Wobblies are out to get him; Hub Donner, union-buster, is buying him lunch; and his own teammates, including the surly Ty Cobb, aren't too crazy about his return to the lineup. Then Rawlings can't find the Detroit cop who told the papers he was the killer; pretty soon there is another Wobblie death. Getting caught up in Attorney General Mitchell Palmer's red scare, Rawlings and his old journalist friend Karl Landfors--who lands in jail--pursue leads that end with Rawlings loading his old army Colt .45 for action. Though taut with plot twists, this fourth Rawlings mystery doesn't pack the wallop of Soos's earlier novels, which kept a tighter focus on baseball lore and mores.