Offside: A Mystery

by William P. Barrett

In 2006, amid the great real estate bubble, Rick Hermannik, an
adult referee of youth soccer, is found murdered in a ritzy Los
Angeles suburb, his whistle left in an unnatural place. Suspicion
quickly falls upon volunteer coach Diego Diaz, a one-time gang
member whose hot Latino rant over an offside call pops up on
YouTube. The media eagerly pursue the delicious story line of out-of-
control soccer parents. Case closed–until the boyfriend of Diaz’s
grown daughter, Hector Rivera, a former high school soccer star
but now a college dropout in a dead-end job, tries to figure out the
truth, and himself.

215 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 24, 2014

About the author

Chronicling a wide cross-section of the human condition, William P. Barrett has worked as an award-winning journalist across the country and abroad for major newspapers and national magazines dating back more than four decades. At various times he’s been a police reporter, court reporter, local government reporter, feature writer, foreign correspondent, national correspondent writing about very small places with very big problems, investigative reporter and business reporter. Barrett’s longest stretch was at Forbes, where his writings illuminated dark sections of the financial world and sent miscreants to prison. A New Jersey native, Barrett holds two degrees from Rutgers, one in law, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst charterholder. On the weekends he has refereed youth soccer in the West, including Southern California, for 17 years. Barrett now lives in Seattle. This is his debut novel.

Reviews

[L V · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reviewed by: Celia
A Latina Book Club

Review: Witty and frank, Offside is an intriguing mystery with a solid in-depth base of history, politics, pop culture, and, of course, soccer. Soccer seemed to be the central theme, and why wouldn’t it? It’s vital to Latino culture. But not being a sport buff, it was a little much and a tad confusing at times.

Barrett paints a true landscape of the SoCal scene and he does so with such brutal finesse. The Mexican cultural references and historical facts were a great value and only enhanced the Latino awareness.

Although slow at capturing my interest, the book illustrates the writer’s impressive skills. He cleverly explores poverty, racism, and other socio-economical issues that Latinos face today. It’s enlightening and thought-provoking. The book is almost suitable for a Chicano Studies class; portions of it can be printed in textbooks. The story, however, was not as great. I felt like I was waiting for the mystery. Also, the variety of characters made it hard to keep track of the story.

It was evident that the author had vast experience and knowledge in police protocol, government, politics, pop culture, and sports, but I felt that it all depleted the energy from the story. Overall, this was an okay first novel.

[Leslie aka StoreyBook Reviews · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd give this somewhere between 2 to 3 stars. Overall the plot was interesting but it got muddied down at the beginning. The murder didn't happen until a third of the way through and a lot of that beginning third could have been trimmed out. Yes some of it was necessary for some background and to tie in later facts germane to the story, but I skimmed through a bunch of it. Plus there were pages of articles from a journalist in there that could have been cut out. I couldn't find a point to those articles other than some history...but once again they could have been shorter or summarized.

Now I have an advantage to having worked in the mortgage lending business that I understood a lot of the terminology about how loans were recorded etc and am very familiar with the mortgage loan crisis, but I think that while we needed to know some of the information to tie the story together, not all of it was necessary.

This could be a good series with some editing.

[Sahar · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful book! I was super excited about this book because I love soccer and I love mysteries, but this book was tedious and overly descriptive. In fact, I had read well over 40% of the book before the murder even occurred. It felt like the author was given a word count that he had to reach - wrote the mystery portion, realized he was no where near his word count and then added the description. I'm all about description - if and only if it furthers the story. The history lesson of Southern California did nothing to further the story.

At one point, the author writes news articles that a character wrote. Those articles were pages and pages long. I ended up just skipping them because they had nothing to do with the story. Yes, one of the articles explained the history of soccer, but this is not a history book. This is a murder mystery.

[Maari · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could see this book being more of a book to be read for a class..
I had a very difficult time getting into this book. It was too serious, the author felt the need to explain things far too much to the point that it became quite repetitive at times. I felt that I was studying, rather than reading for pleasure. I am sure that this book is for some people, just not for me.
I was gifted this ebook in exchange for my honest review. Opinions in this review are my own.

[Patricia Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr Barrett has written a brilliant, snarky, irreverent look into the stereotypical attitudes of the "more, bigger, and better" lifestyle of people in 2006 Southern California just before the real estate boom went bust. Add in the smooth blend of soccer and a murder mystery, and you have a book that's well worth the price.

[Susan · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading nearly a fifth of the book I find that I have been told everything I never wanted to know about soccer in California. I presume that there is a death in the book as it is called a mystery but I am never going to find out.