Cutting Loose

by Michael Z. Lewin

"Show some respect, young man...Just what was this young woman to you?" Jackie looked into the nurse's pinkface. "Nance was the best friend I ever had," she said. "The only friend I ever had."

Jackie is Jack Cross to everyone except Nance, a Wild West show trick shooter in turn-of-the-century New York who has her own secrets to hide. A slick-fielding second baseman with a good bat, Jackie must never drop her disguise if she is to continue to play professional baseball. But when Nance is murdered by a knife-thrower who does know Jackie's secret, the young ballplayer takes off on a transatlantic chase that changes her life.

Set on two continents, in three different time-periods, with a fascinating cast of characters including Buffalo Bill Cody, Jack the Ripper, and a musical star named Ruby the Red who has still another hidden life, Cutting Loose is a multi-layered page-turner filled with insights and surprises.

Genres: Young Adult

528 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 1999

About the author

Michael Zinn Lewin is an American writer of mystery fiction perhaps best known for his series about Albert Samson, a distinctly low-keyed, non-hardboiled private detective who plies his trade in Indianapolis, Indiana. Lewin himself grew up in Indianapolis, but after graduating from Harvard and living for a few years in New York City, has lived in England for the last 40 years. Much of his fiction continues to be set in Indianapolis, including a secondary series about Leroy Powder, a policeman who frequently appears in the Samson novels, generally in a semi-confrontational manner.

Another series, however, is set in Bath, England, where Lewin now lives. This features the Lunghis who run their detective agency as a family business. So far there are three novels and nine short stories about them.

Lewin has also written a number of stand-alone novels. Some have been set in Indianapolis and others elsewhere. His latest novel, Confessions of a Discontented Deity, is even set partly in Heaven. A satire, it breaks from Lewin's history of genre fiction.

Lewin is the son of Leonard C. Lewin, author of the 1967 bestselling satire The Report from Iron Mountain: On the Possibility and Desirability of Peace.

Reviews

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't remember how old I was when I read this book, but I loved it to pieces.

[Marisa Novotarski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in middle school and I remember loving it!!

[Christianne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the structure of the book, with alternating chapters taking place in the past and the present. The history of many of the characters was very interesting, especially the history about the early baseball players and the paupers who were sold at auction.

However, the writing was very flat. It lacked good description and relied too heavily on dialogue. It read like a book for younger teens even though some of the subject matter would appeal to older teens.

Also the ending was satisfying but too neat.