A Perfect Shot

by Robin Yocum

A local basketball star in a small Ohio town tries to remake his life in middle age, but instead must confront a murderer and the prospect of leaving his hometown and giving up everything that once gave his life meaning.

Nicholas "Duke" Ducheski is the most important man in the eastern Ohio steel town of Mingo Junction. Nearly two decades after he made the winning shot in the state championship basketball game, he remains much adored and the focal point of community pride. Hardly a day passes when someone doesn't want to talk about "the game." Now approaching forty, Duke no longer wants to be defined solely by something he did when he was eighteen. So he decides to parlay his local popularity into a successful restaurant--"Duke's Place."

But no sooner does he get his restaurant up and running than disaster strikes. One day, "Little Tony" DeMarco, his brother-in-law and a known mob enforcer, comes into the restaurant and murders Duke's oldest friend. Now Duke faces the hardest decision of his life. DeMarco thinks he's untouchable, but Duke discovers a way to take him down, along with his mob superiors.

To do so, however, means leaving Mingo Junction and sacrificing his treasured identity as the town legend. And if he follows through, what will remain of his life?

Genres: Fiction, Audiobook, Thriller, Mystery Thriller

336 pages, Paperback

First published April 17, 2018

About the author

Robin Yocum is the author of the award-winning, critically acclaimed novel, Favorite Sons (June 2012, Arcade Publishing). Favorite Sons was named the 2011 USA Book News Book of the Year for Mystery/Suspense, and is a Choose to Read Ohio selection for 2013-14. His latest novel, The Essay, was released in October 2012 by Arcade. He also is the author of Dead Before Deadline, a compilation of stories from his days as a crime beat reporter with the Columbus Dispatch, and Insured for Murder, which he co-authored with Dispatch colleague Catherine Candisky. Robin joined the Columbus Dispatch as a reporter in 1980 and worked at the paper for eleven years, spending four years on the crime beat, followed by a post as senior reporter on the investigative desk. He won more than 30 local, state and national awards while at the paper. Yocum has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University.

Reviews

[John Yingling · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the third straight time, Robin Yocum has written a book that I think is A+. He, at least as much as anyone I have read for the past 5 years or so, is outstanding at setting. This book takes place in Steubenville, Ohio, and I feel as though I have lived there for all my life after reading this story. Among the many other aspects of this book that I love are the characters. None are perfect paragons, and that's a good thing. I can identify with people who have flaws. I like one of the themes: how do you live your life after you have achieved success at a high level--in this case, a star high school basketball player who made the game-winning shot for the state championship. As we see in the story, this fame comes with all kinds of burdens, and how our main character deals with these burdens is fascinating and heartbreaking. There is evil in this story, redemption, violence, and a meditation on life in a city that once was a haven of productivity and a fulfillment of the American Dream, and now has become a repository of broken ideals, lost souls, and the stink of corruption, criminal activity and illegal drugs. I'm so glad that I "discovered" Robin Yocum. Reading these three books that take place in Eastern Ohio has been a pure pleasure.

[Mike Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great writing, great characters. Not normally a fan of mob books in general, but this one was very well written. Loved the characters, Duke and Moonie were very good. Really liked the writing style, at times it was like a bunch of short stories inside a bigger story. loved it.

[Jim Thomsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

"On May 24, 1994, a warm, clear Tuesday in which the Ohio River Valley was finally shaking off the gray doldrums of a cold and damp spring, the most popular man in the history of Mingo Junction, Ohio, dropped off the face of the earth."

What do you do when your identity is both the source of your greatest pride and your greatest despair? Nicholas "Duke" Ducheski is a lifetime legend in his hometown of Mingo Junction, Ohio, ever since he scored 13 points in the final three seconds of the 1971 state championship basketball game, including the buzzer-beater to cap a twelve-point comeback. It's a town in which he'll never have to pay for his own drinks. But it's also a town in which he's forty-one, still working in the same steel mill he first set foot in after high-school graduation, still the father of a son who's been a vegetable ever since a birthing mishap, and still married to the high-school girlfriend who despises him so much that she'll never divorce him, preferring his misery over her happiness. And none of that makes him feel particularly proud of being The Duke of Mingo Junction.

But Duke has a dream tied to his fame: opening and operating his own bar. He's been socking away his spare change for years, and finally the glorious day arrives, with his best friend Moonie by his side. But that's when things go homicidally sideways. Moonie, a chronic gambler, settles his mounting debts by knocking off the mob's local bagman. And when Moonie turns to Duke for help, Moonie's problem are placed on the shoulders of Duke by Tony DeMarco, the local mob enforcer who knows what went down but can't quite prove it. Tony, who's also Duke's brother-in-law, takes advantage of his psychological leverage over Duke by not only forbidding him to seek a divorce or see his girlfriend on the side ever agin, but by demanding that Duke run his dream bar as a mob front, with gambling crowding out legitimate trade. And bad things happen to people to say no to Tony, as Duke finds out when he returns to the bar one night and finds Moonie dying in a puddle of blood ....

It's a perfect setup, and A PERFECT SHOT perfectly delivers as Duke tries to figure out how to save his bar, save his life, save his dreams and not further antagonize the mob in the process. Accomplishing this task will be as tricky as ... well ... figuring out how to score thirteen points in sixty-three seconds against the best and toughest in the land.

A PERFECT SHOT is the final volume in a loose trilogy featuring three cousins in neighboring Ohio River Valley towns. More than the other two, it leans hard into darkness leavened with black humor, and does so with the unimpeachable authenticity of a native son who happens to be a skilled and succinct storyteller. (Yocum spent decades as an award-winning newspaper journalist.) Like his other books, with a small publisher, A PERFECT SHOT was not a highly visible book in the crime-fiction world, lacking the marketing muscle and social-media stroking of novels from the big New York publishers. But it is every bit their equal, and is not only one of the finest works of crime fiction in 2017, but of any time, and deserves a place at the head of the table with its twist-riddled, hyper-hyped, market-of-the-moment brothers and sisters in thrillerdom.

[Viviane Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicholas “Duke” Ducheski is famous for his basketball performance in the small town of Mingo Junction, Ohio. He thought his amazing skill shown in the state championship game would win him scholarships galore in colleges but that wasn’t the case. Still he is the shining star of this steel mining town forever, but he doesn’t want to live on past laurels. So he sets out to do something he can call successful. At first he is forced to work in the mines but then decides to start his own restaurant, “Duke’s Place.”
Duke marries but it’s not a good union at all. Add to his unhappiness is the fact that at age forty, after he first opens up his restaurant, his hoodlum brother-in-law, “Little Tony” DeMarco, shows up and thinks he’s going to get a piece of the pie as part of the local Mafia. Everyone with any brains at all is mortally frightened of Tony, whose only talents lie in knowing how to beat victims to a pulp or murder them if they don’t cooperate with the local “muscle.”
Now one might say it’s easier to cough up some money to find peace and protection, but Duke isn’t made of that stuff. All he wants is to run his business, do well, and eventually get a divorce from his wife who refuses to comply with his requests. Life is beginning to get truly miserable to Duke. But the reader will be surprised by the plan Duke devises to rid himself of the prevailing “thorns” in his flesh and business.
No spoilers here. Suffice to say that most Mafioso stories are quite predictable; this isn’t one of them. Stay with the reading as the action picks up and justice is served in the most astonishing manner. Duke will pay a price but it’s not one any reader can predict.
Nicely crafted crime thriller – definitely plotted as a “perfect shot!”

[Cindy B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Within a heartbreaking and dangerous time - a handicapped child, a heartbroken dad, and friends threatened by evil. Stay for a heartening end. It’s worth the read for the content and the introduction - (I miss his narrations).

[Jackmeister · Rating 5 out of 5]

A solid 4.5 rounded up to 5

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

"He never had a single person pat him on the back for a good grade card, but he received lots of accolades for the things he did on the basketball court."

Nicholas "Duke" Ducheski grew up in Mingo Junction, Ohio, a steel mill town, with his two best friends. His claim to fame was the winning shot in the state basketball championships over twenty years ago. He works at the steel mill (after getting his high school girlfriend pregnant) and dreams of a better life - one where he doesn't hate his wife, have a severely disabled son, and a mobster for a brother-in-law.

This was an excellent story about eastern Ohio, a steel mill town in the mid 1990s, a blue collar worker that wants to better himself, and the workings of organized crime as it involves gambling in the territory including Mingo Junction.

I liked the way the different pieces of this story were put together from the beginning to the epilogue. Duke Ducheski is an everyday man having to deal with extraordinary circumstances - and he does it well.

I received this book from Seventh Street Books through Edelweiss in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

First read by this author. While not my preferred detective/ crime novel, it’s probably my second favorite type of read being just good fiction. Definitely recommend this book and will look at more titles from this author.

[Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've yet to walk away from a Yocum book disatisfied and A Perfect Shot is no different. This one marks the last in the trio of books that include A Brilliant Death and A Welcome Murder. They aren't exactly a trilogy: if you read them out of order you won't be terribly confused for sure, but they do all go together as each book features one of three cousins and how they are not only tied by blood but also by murder. Each is also a look at youth and manhood.

A Perfect Shot is different than most books I've read by Robin Yocum in that it's written mostly in third person. Previous books of his were all in first person, including A Welcome Murder which featured several first person accounts throughout the book. This story is of Nicholas "Duke" Ducheski of Mingo Junction. Duke is well-liked in town for his amazing final surge in a championship basketball game back in his high school years. He enjoys local celebrity but finds himself somewhat trapped by it and actions of youth that keep him tied to his home town.

What's interesting about this one is the direct comparison of Duke with his brother-in-law, Tony DeMarco, a mob enforcer. Tony is brutal, forceful and is feared by the locals, but also lacks respect. It's a sticking point for DeMarco that Duke has done nothing in town save that last basketball game and yet still has more respect than DeMarco ever obtained. Both men are somewhat stuck in their position. Duke is tied down in an unhappy marriage to Tony's twin sister; Tony is stuck unable to advance in his family as the current leader resented the respect his departed father gave Tony.

Things come to a head when Duke, trying to change for the better opens a restaurant, and Tony wants Duke to accommodate the Mafia's illegal gambling operations there. Duke wants nothing to do with that, but thanks to actions of a long-time friend, he finds himself under DeMarco's thumb. To get himself out, Duke has to make sacrifices. In contrast to A Brilliant Death, Duke's sacrifices are reasonably harder. He has connections, respect, and family of a couple of sorts that keep him in Mingo Junction as opposed to Mitch's best friend Travis who had little tying him to town save the powerful bond of friendship.

The conflict and tension are done masterfully, and I enjoyed this book thoroughly. Anyone who hasn't read any book by Yocum is seriously missing out in my opinion.

[Tiger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Duke Ducheski is still a local hero in Mingo Junction, Ohio for winning the High School State basketball championship 20 years ago. Duke works hard to make his dream of owning his own bar/restaurant come true, but soon the local mafia come knocking wanting a piece of the action. To make matters worse, Duke's own brother in law , Tony Demarco is the violent mobster who is squeezing him and Duke must frantically search for way to be free and successful. Believable characters and a roller coaster plot.

[Betty-Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mystery. Mafia. Murder. Exciting book.

[Vicki Service · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always enjoy Robin Yocum books. Although this was not my favorite of his books, it was still entertaining and I would recommend it.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yocum, an Ohio author, is one of my favorite writers. He can evoke memories of a time gone by without sugarcoating them. This story isn't as funny as his other two books set in the same area, but it is every bit as engrossing. Yocum is a good storyteller.

[Bookreporter.com Mystery & Thriller · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was love at first sight --- make that first page --- for me with A PERFECT SHOT. How could I resist a book that mentions Isaly’s, the gone but not forgotten ice cream and sandwich parlor chain of my misbegotten youth? Robin Yocum’s recent novels --- A WELCOME MURDER, A BRILLIANT DEATH and now this one --- mine the fertile, dark, gritty vein of the Ohio Valley, where the eastern part of the Buckeye State butts up against West Virginia. Yocum captures with pitch-perfect clarity the mid- to late-20th-century angst of adolescence and adulthood in small-town rural and industrial cities, where departures are more the norm than arrivals.

The mystery that is articulated at the beginning of A PERFECT SHOT and that quietly haunts and resonates throughout until the very end is: What happened to the Duke of Mingo Junction? It seems that the Duke has abruptly disappeared from the small town where he has been known for over 20 years as a hero. Rumors abound as the story opens and Yocum rolls out his colorful and true-to-life cast of characters. Chief among them is Nicholas “Duke” Ducheski, who, even in his early 40s, continues to trade off the fame afforded to him. Such is the result of his performance in the magical final minute of a state championship basketball game. On behalf of his high school team, he single-handedly snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, sealing the deal with the perfect, once-in-a-lifetime shot that gives this worthy novel its name.

Duke had intended to use this accomplishment to springboard his way out of Mingo Junction and a dead-end future as a mill worker. But fate and circumstance intervened, and some two decades later in the early 1990s, he finds himself, well, in a dead-end job as a mill worker, though he is still regarded as a hometown hero who rarely, if ever, has to pay for a drink. The adulation Duke receives from the citizens of Mingo Junction is such that jukeboxes in the local taverns include a recording of the broadcast of the final minutes of the game. However, Duke dreams of a way of trading the drudgery of his factory job for his own restaurant and bar where he can leverage his large fish in a little pond status as a drawing card, with the possibility of leaving his angry and bitter wife for his compassionate and comely girlfriend.

Duke begins to achieve his restaurant success, but the business attracts the attention of the local mob, whose enforcer, “Little Tony” DeMarco, is his brother-in-law. DeMarco puts the squeeze on Duke, forcing him to facilitate illegal gambling in his establishment even as he knows that it will inevitably result in the restaurant’s demise and quite possibly his own as well. Duke formulates a plan, one that could cost him his life and, if successful, will require him to give up almost everything. Which way does it go? You’ll have to read nearly each and every perfect page to find out.

There is a question that lingers and haunts at the end of the book. One wonders how much of what Yocum puts forth between these pages is fiction, and how much is truth disguised as a tale. Regardless, A PERFECT SHOT is just that, served up well.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

[John Weyrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of A Perfect Shot by Robin Yocum (c) 2018 Seventh Street Books 311 pages

Here is the last of the trilogy by Ohio author Robin Yocum, featuring cousins from the Steubenville area, and this was the best. Here he returns to the single narrator, the same one used in A Brilliant Death, not the confusing clatter of multiple speakers in A Welcome Murder.

Read this one first.

And this book has something else the other two did not, suspense! The others are in the category, but this time, this book, had me burning the pages up, getting to the big showdown, High Noon, so to speak in Mingo Junction! That made the whole three book read worthwhile. The journey however, was not perfect.

Robin must have been into the athletics he describes, his sporting events feel real. It is basketball here, the staccato rapping of a radio announcer can be a beautiful thing, and I can read it over and over to enjoy the pacing. Collecting the sports memorabilia is a hobby enjoyed by many, well done here.

Just as we must assume the basketball is round, when an author describes a specific automobile, then we expect round tires. Just like in the Brilliant book, we got square tires! Robin tried then to tell us that a ’57 Chevy had Fuel Injection and a 4 barrel carburetor, at the same time! Every pump jockey at every gas station in the Ohio River valley fell over into their grease pit laughing! This time, in 1959, he is giving us a brand new 1959 Buick, with a Wildcat 455. Sorry, Robin, but the Wildcat 455 was not manufactured and available until 1962. Also, the taillights are round, they are not canted. The headlights are canted, and so are the fins. Just those little details mar an otherwise excellent book.

One detail I can reveal that won’t spoil the story, but would change some of the wrap-up is that we know where Tony parked. Remember that.

When I read a book, fiction or non fiction, I like to look at Google for maps, and Robin forgot to tell us how the boys’ fort was named, but I figured that out on my own. Maybe you will too if you read the book. I’d recommend it.

John Weyrick

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Duke is known for one thing, his winning shot in the state championship basketball game when he was in high school. His life has gone downhill from there, including a hasty marriage to his high school sweetheart, a son who was born disabled and a dead-end job working in the mines. Now, his marriage is all but over but his wife won't agree to a divorce, his mistress is getting impatient and his son is dying. And Duke is tired of only being known for one thing so he sets out to open a bar/restaurant. As soon as Duke's Place opens, his mobbed brother-in-law, Tony, wants him to run his gambling sheets at the bar but Duke refuses. This works for a while until his best friend, Moonie, does something stupid and gets himself caught up with one of the mob's money runners which leads to a fight were the money runner ends up dead and Moonie is trying to hide the mobster's head along with the $60,000 of drug money. Now Moonie is in trouble and Duke has to bail him out. He buries the head in the woods behind his hunting cabin while Moonie hides the money. But when Moonie ends up dead, shot by Tony in Duke's Place, Duke knows that he is in over his head. He makes a deal with the FBI to get evidence to put Tony and his boss away if they put him into witness protection. Duke and his friend break into Tony's safe to steal the recordings that Tony has been making when he talks to his boss, hoping one day to use them to blackmail his way into power. With the tapes in hand, Duke slowly starts arranging his affairs, signing the deed to the restaurant over to his friend, hastening his son's death and saying goodbye to his mistress. When Tony finds the tapes missing, he knows that it was Duke and he catches up with him while he is scattering his son's ashes at the cabin. Duke, anticipating that Tony would follow him, shoots him and hides his body in an abandoned mine shaft. He heads off to his life in witness protection where he eventually meets a nice single mom and settles down.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Seventh Street Books for sending me a free copy of A Perfect Shot in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

A Perfect Shot really surprised me! The first quarter or so of the book had me thrown off. It was bouncing around all over the place, introducing characters, going back and forth in the timeline, providing backstory. I was confused and ALMOST DNF'd the book, I just couldn't see where it was going. But then I crested a hill, and once the plot got rolling it picked up big time! Then I just couldn't put it down. Now that I have finished the book, I can see that all of the backstory in the beginning really was necessary to build up the plot. A Perfect Shot has a slew of loveable characters and just as many love-to-hate characters. I also learned a lot about mob activity in Ohio, which I previously knew nothing about. I am giving this book 4 out of 5 stars, because once I got into it, I loved it, but I feel like the build up of backstory at the beginning could have been woven in a little smoother.

On a side note, my non-reading husband read this book and really liked it. He has started traveling for work and has reluctantly started taking a book along to read on the plane, at my suggestion. I recommended this novel to him, I though he would like the mob activity and that it is set in Ohio, where we live, so he did. Since reading A Perfect Shot, he has checked every other Robin Yocum book out of the library and liked them as well. I'll make a reader out of him yet! So if you are like me and looking for books your husband might like, give this one a try!

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Perfect Shot is a gripping story about the residents of Mingo Junction, Ohio, and their relationships with one another as they try to navigate life under the thumb of a Mafia family. The main character, Duke Ducheski, finds himself slaving away at the local steel mill like his dad before him, coming home to a wife who hates him, and visiting his son Timmy in a nursing home, where he spends his days sustained by a feeding tube with no recognition of his surroundings. His mistress Cara is fed up with his promises to divorce his wife, and his predicament is complicated by his brother-in-law Tony DeMarco, the most vicious soldier of the Antonelli crime family. Tony has forbidden Duke from divorcing his twin sister, by way of a pistol to the head, and so Duke is stuck reliving the best day of his life, the day he won his high school the state basketball championship and became a local legend.
Duke decides that life is too short to waste away in the steel mill, and he works day and night to open up his own restaurant. The restaurant becomes instantly successful for three months, until Duke’s best friend Moonie gets into an altercation with the Antonelli family’s bagman and kills him. Everything spirals out of control after that, leading to a thrilling mob story that is tough to put down.
Robin Yocum has written a fantastic novel with some really interesting and relatable characters. Everyone has some unlikable aspects to them, and you’ll find yourself turning page after page to find out how the characters could mess up their own lives any worse than they already have. This is a really solid and entertaining read, and I’d like to check out Yocum’s other work.

[Teena in Toronto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Duke peaked in high school when he got the winning shot in a state championship basketball game. He was offered university scholarships but had to pass on them when Nina, his girl friend, got pregnant. They married and he ended up working in the mill. Timothy, their son, had medical issues when he was born and had been in an convalescent home all his life (20+ years). The marriage was now loveless but Nina refused to give Duke a divorce. So Duke's life sucked.

Duke has always wanted to be known for more than something he did decades ago and reinvented himself by opening a restaurant called "Duke's Place". Tony, Nina's brother, worked for the mob and forced himself into Duke's business, something Duke wasn't happy about but there's nothing he could do about it. Finally fed up and potentially fighting for his life, Duke knew he couldn't continue this way and was determined to do something about it.

I liked this story and was cheering for Duke. It starts with Mitch, Duke's cousin and a reporter, telling us that Duke and his car disappeared one day and was never seen again. It's written in third person perspective except in the first and last chapters when it's in first person perspective in Mitch's voice. As a head's up, there swearing and violence.

Blog review post: http://www.teenaintoronto.com/2025/05...

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fine rust town romance novel. Good writing. A fairy tale. Small town Ohio basketball hero ends up working in steel mill. has an indifferent wife from a mob family and a disabled son. Son's brain damage caused by medical negligence, so he cared for for free in a nursing home. Duke manages to get $ to set up a bar/restaurant employing his best buds, so they get decent work and one of them is sworn to quit gambling. Friend is killed by Duke's mob bro in law. Duke gets revenge, enters protection, finds a good woman and lives happily ever after
Even though filled w violence, still amazing how everything goes Duke's way. Has to euthanize his son but the boy has recently turned for the worse and is dying anyway. Duke doesn't want to leave him to the non care of his heartless slob of a mother. Women are fairly cardboard, but the story moves along.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

In MIngo Junction, Ohio, Duke is a celebrity once he made the winning basketball shot in the state championship game. Twenty years pass and Duke remains a hometown favorite, even though his adult life has been full of struggles: a failing marriage, a disabled son, a family member in the mafia. Duke decides to open a restaurant and the mob wants a piece of the action: Duke seeks revenge. The novel is filled with gore and murders and illegal gambling issues. Despite the grittiness of the story line, the reader will embrace Duke's passion to end the mafia's hold on the Ohio Valley. The book is the fifth mystery by my hometown author and I enjoyed reading about all the places of my childhood.

[Cedric Fuchs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was engrossed by the innocence of Duke And Moodie the main characters and the secretive mob in this parochial town
Duke had the potential to be a great basket ball player but like many people luck did’nt provide him with that opportunity However he did live on as a hero in his hometown which enabled him to extract himself from a meagre job in the coal mines
Both characters displayed such loyalty to each other and Duke was so selfless so often that you have admire his character and principles
Of course not to mention the mob,they all are like the mob predators who have no mercy and ice in their veins
This novel kept me totally engaged and the author’s style of writing is very effective and humorous
A must read

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big Robin Yocum fan: he captures the spirit of small town, rust belt Ohio with clarity and nuance. His previous books hold a special place in this reader's heart. He works his characters into the cultural landscape of rural America and still creates powerful stories around them.

I was all set to give this book a four star thumbs-up when the ending skidded out of control. I don't want to add a spoiler, but let's just say that the main character's personality seemed to change from thoughtful-guy-in-a-tough-spot to a cavalier hothead. At this point, I lost my connection with an otherwise wonderful character.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Robin Yocum's work and this one did not disappoint. I enjoy his characters and their personalities. The main characters of his books are regular guys caught up in, perhaps, an irregular event and I just really like reading and listening to their stories.
You'll recognize some names from other tales from southeastern Ohio as you follow Duke Ducheski through life in Mingo Junction. He just wants an honest life and works hard for it, but his mob-involved brother-in-law makes that rather tricky. This is a good read. I listened to it and wasn't crazy about the narrator, but he did have some good accents. Highly recommend.

[Maura DeLuca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. While it took me a few chapters to get into this book, I’m glad I stuck with it. It is a book about the mob, gambling, a small town in Ohio and a state high school basketball game. The Duke of Mingo Junction won the state championship with a buzzer beater and has lived in the shadow ever since. This story follows his life and tangles with the mob. Like all good things, the story comes to and end but not before it takes a roller coaster ride. Fabulous story, great setting and I cannot wait to read more by this author. Highly recommend.

[Libby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently read A BRILLIANT DEATH by this author and was completely charmed by the story, the characters, and the setting. Now, with A PERFECT SHOT, we read about a cousin to the narrator in the previous book. Duke finds himself in a terrible situation..stuck in a marriage that is from hell. His wife would make anyone consider a hit man. She is a self centered, lazy person and her family is much worse, especially her brother who is basically a fixer for the mob.

Duke is trapped in a situation not really of his making. He creates a fabulous scenario to escape before he is killed.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up on a mystery display at the local library. It as wrapped in brown paper. A total mystery of a book. It was amazing. Great character development great story. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Highly recommend. And it’s always fun when the flawed main character ends up doing well. Well done to the author

[Kristina Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up. I met Robin at the Buckeye Book Fair and was intrigued by his background and content of stories that all took place in Ohio.

The story was well written and one that I couldn’t put down. He creates a cast of characters that tie perfectly into the cultural landscape of the area.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started out slow with too many characters to keep straight. Eventually I was drawn into the story and, as with his other books, I couldn't put it down. I'm not a fan of books about the mob, but this book was different. I liked how he was so devoted to his son, although how that ended bothers me quite a bit.

[Eileen Johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third book of Robin’s I’ve read recently and I picked it up thinking, “surely this can’t be as good as the last two I read.” I was wrong. This guy is quite the storyteller and makes turning the pages unstoppable. I feel like i truly know the characters in each book. He combines wit, humor, and suspense into amazing stories!