Drover and the Designated Hitter (Drover, No 3)
by By Granger, Bill
Category: Fiction , Mystery & Detective , General

Ex-sportswriter Jimmy Drover is a cross between Breslin and Bogart: the contemporary hard-bitten tough guy in his purest form. Formerly a prizewinning sports reporter for a Los Angeles newspaper, Drover found his luck running out when there surfaced a picture of him in the company of some Chicago wise guys. They weren't doing business; Drover was just catching up with some guys he knew from growing up in the streets. But a U.S. attorney with ulterior motives got him fired from his paper, and Drover's life was upended.Now he lives in Santa Cruz, trading stories and killing time at a local bar with a crew of good-natured, trustworthy lazybones. To make ends meet, he works off and on for Fox Vernon, a legendary Las Vegas oddsmaker. Vernon needs a scout, a busybody - and so Drover makes a living by using his intuitions and sports world knowledge, talking his way into locker rooms, gambling dens, mobsters' and managers' offices, traveling around the country in pursuit of sports world info that might affect the odds on Sunday's game.Drover is called into an investigation of Homer White, whose heavy-hitting baseball career with the Chicago Cubs has gone into a slump after leg injuries. Homer's suspected of gambling - easy enough for Drover to check up on, given his above- and below-board contacts. But as Drover gets more of the lowdown, the picture becomes more deadly: Some people want to sabotage Homer's career - including his bitter ex-wife. Some want to save it - including his beautiful rehab nurse, Helen Brown. Trying to learn the hidden story, Drover steps into a knotty web of threats and violent passions and finds himself again under suspicion - and under the gun.The third in Bill Granger's best-selling Drover series, Drover and the Designated Hitter comes through again with Granger's vivid panorama of modern sports world detail and Drover's caustic, seen-it-all wit.