Crime and Mystery Writers Tackle Football

In the latest headlines, American football has collided with politics, corruption and social conflict. So it's no wonder authors have been drawn to the gridiron for murder mystery and crime thriller plots. Consider Paydirt, by Edgar nominee and best-selling author Paul Levine: Bobby Gallagher is a broken man, fired from his prestigious job, disbarred from the legal profession, divorced from the wife he loves, and in debt to the mob. So he decides to win it all back by rigging the Super Bowl. Assisted by his 12-year-old son, he must fix the game, win a huge bet and avoid getting killed. Also focusing on the Super Bowl is Thomas Harris' best-selling thriller Black Sunday (later a movie) about a plot by terrorists to commit mass murder during the Super Bowl in New Orleans, turning the innocuous blimp into a death machine. Harlan Coben, Edgar Award-winner and master of the surprise twist, turns to football with Deal Breaker. Myron Bolitar is a sports agent whose prize client, a rookie football quarterback, is poised on the edge of the big time. Then the young quarterback gets a phone call from a former girlfriend—a woman believed dead—and Myron must confront the dark side of the sports business and unravel dangerous truths about a family tragedy, a woman’s secret, and a man’s lies. Of course, as a University of Michigan grad, I can't resist mentioning Bleeding Maize and Blue by Susan Holtzer. In football-obsessed Ann Arbor, computer consultant Anneke Haagen is swept up in the UM President's Weekend festivities where her boyfriend, police lieutenant Karl Genesko, is set to be honored as one of Michigan's brightest former football stars. Then a student sportswriter breaks the story of an NCAA probe of UM recruiting, and the agency's investigator turns up murdered in the stadium end zone. Anneke uses her analytic mind to help probe deadly secrets and shady deals involving deep alumni pockets. Finally, before either pro football or college football, there is high-school football, the proving ground of young athletes and community pride. In The Prophet by best-selling author Michael Koryta, the murder of a teenage girl  reopens decades-old wounds and forces two estranged brothers, one a bail bondsman on the social fringes and one the beloved coach of the local high school football team, to unite to stop a killer. For more football-themed mysteries and crime thrillers, see http://themysteryshop.com/murder-at-the-super-bowl-other-football-crime-fiction/

Mysteries with a Mystical Bent

I just spent a wonderful weekend in Sedona, Arizona, with girlfriends, including visits to shops stocked with religious icons, New Age literature and rocks claiming various mystical properties. We also hiked to a famous "vortex" to imbibe its earth energy. Now I must admit that a number of curious things occurred near the vortex; for example, a strange man suddenly appeared on the trail and handed out free heart-shaped pieces of red sandstone to our group of gals before moseying on. Divine Messenger or Loco Local? Choose the most satisfying answer. Now as a rule, I tend to avoid detective fiction that relies on the workings of angels, fairies, witches, vampires, ghosts, psychics or otherwordly powers, animal or mineral, as plot devices in solving mysteries. But I also make exceptions. Here are some popular mysteries with a paranormal bent, starting with favorite author Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island, about U.S. Marshals who go to an island asylum to investigate the disappearance of a criminally insane patient. Some detecting powers I'd rather not have. In Chuck Wendig's Blackbirds, Miriam Black can tell with a touch when you're going to die, and the hero of The Cypress House by best-selling author Michael Koryta can sense imminent death. If you like folks who can use magical powers to catch criminals, try prolific author Heather Blake's It Takes a Witch, whose heroine casts spells to grant wishes, with some murderous consequences. If you believe in psychic sleuthing, read any entry in Kay Hooper's series about the FBI Special Crimes Unit's psychic detecting. For ghost lovers, there's Night of the Living Deed by E.J. Copperman, about a haunted guesthouse where the ghosts expect the new owner to solve their murders. And that brings us back to Sedona, and Mathew Marine's Devil's Moon about a troubled FBI agent who gets involved in investigating a Sedona "murder-suicide" after a young woman is found mutilated in a police officer’s basement, his confession scrawled on the wall above his dead body. Sounds like a straightforward who-done-it? Hey, it's set in Sedona, so psychic powers, premonitions, angels and mystical experiences abound. For more paranormal mysteries, check out readers' recommendations at https://www.goodreads.com/genres/paranormal-mystery