Murder at the Baseball Hall of Fame

by David Daniel, Chris Carpenter

While visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, ex-cop Frank Branco witnesses the death of a former major league player, and his detecting instincts come on strong. He looks into the recent past of the dead man and finds a life lived at the edges. Once a promising rookie, Herb Frawley saw his career take a nosedive after several seasons. Why the abrupt decline? Is it somehow linked to Frawley's death?
Hired by Frawley's ex-wife, Branco begins a case that takes him from the Manhattan offices of a big-time sports agent, through the seedy world of Coney Island grifters, to a religious colony on the Jersey Shore. The focus of his investigation becomes an old ballpark vendor whom Branco locates in a Florida rest home. The old man's chaotic memories of a bygone era of baseball land Branco in a thirty-year-old mystery involving pornography, betrayal, and murder.
But is he up to solving it? He left the cops after being shot in the line of duty, but his wound goes far deeper than the pain it still causes him, and he must continually probe at the underlying failure it implies. Now time has come full circle, and Branco uncovers a devastating secret that puts him into a ninth-inning situation from which there may be no escape.

Genres: Mystery

215 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1996

About the author

David Daniel's stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies alongside work by Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson. He is author of more than a dozen books, including entries in the St. Martin’s Press prize-winning Alex Rasmussen mystery series: The Heaven Stone, The Skelly Man, Goofy Foot, and The Marble Kite. Other novels include White Rabbit, a novel of the 1960, and the bestselling political thriller The Tuesday Man.

His newest book, Beach Town, a collection of short stories, is a bittersweet look at the loves and losses of characters, young and old, living in a coastal town.

Born in Boston, Daniel has traveled widely and has been a teacher, surfer, tennis coach, clam digger, and brain slicer in the neuropathology lab at Harvard Medical School.

Reviews

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved Daniel's writing. He captured characters and motivation very well and clearly. But the story was extremely disturbing, which I realize is the point of thrillers.