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What is a baby - lightly drugged but otherwise healthy - doing
abandoned in the players' chapel at Boston's Fenway Park?
Meanwhile, the girlfriend of a player on the Red Sox's Portland,
Maine, farm team is found beaten and drowned in Boston. Rocky
Patel, a Boston PD homicide detective, catches both cases and
quickly pieces together the connections between the two cases. But
as good as Patel is, there's a blogger out there who always seems
just a half step ahead of him and ultimately may be critical to
solving the case. Baseball fans (citizens of Red Sox Nation in
particular) will enjoy this one thoroughly. The authors use real
players as characters and incorporate the best aspects of their
public personas into the story. The plot unfolds intelligently, and
Rocky Patel is a good guide through the proceedings. A solid
contribution to the growing subgenre of baseball mysteries.
Lukowsky, Wes.
An abandoned baby is found in the clubhouse at Fenway Park. The
nurses at Deaconess name him Ted Williams, what else? A promising
minor league pitcher goes missing. A player agent is caught up in a
web of blackmail. A woman's body turns up in the Back Bay fens.
Enter Rocky Patel, Boston Homicide Detective First Grade, ordered
to connect the dots. And joining him out of left field, an
anonymous blogger who knows too much.
Red Sox in a good mystery - who could ask for more!Reviewed by P. McCaffrey, 2010-01-20
OK, I am a big Red Sox fan. It was great fun to have the 2007 Red Sox team as part of the mystery - I enjoyed the glimpses of real-life personalities. However, the detective Rocky Patel and his partner Marty made this mystery more than just another mystery that everyone reads because the Red Sox are in it. This is a good mystery with characters that you care about. I would like to see the further adventures of Rocky and Marty, with or without the Red Sox.
Red Sox, Murder, and HeartReviewed by S. Agusto-Cox, 2009-08-13
Mary-Ann Tirone Smith and Jere Smith's Dirty Water: A Red Sox
Mystery is a unique murder mystery set against the backdrop of the
2007 Red Sox summer season. Fan favorites from Jason Veritek to
David "Big Papi" Ortiz play minor to significant roles in
uncovering the truth behind the death of Cinthia Sanchez, the
abandonment of her child Arturo Sanchez (also known as Baby Ted
Williams), and the Pestano Pipeline of illegal Cuban players making
their way into Major League Baseball.
Red Sox fans will love this novel, and those who read mysteries
will enjoy this police procedural as well. Readers could take a few
chapters to get into the novel with its story followed by blog
posts and comments. What Dirty Water: A Red Sox Mystery has that
many other mystery novels don't is a true feel for the city of
Boston, Fenway, its fans, and the team. Smith and Smith are third
and fourth generation Red Sox fans, and their knowledge shines
through in every page as readers journey with Boston Police
Detective Rocky Patel and Sargeant Marty Flanagan from Boston to
Los Angeles to Florida and beyond.
Boston Police Detective Rocky Patel and Sargeant Marty Flanagan
have different religions and methods, but each is dedicated to the
job and justice. Beyond the mystery and the Red Sox trivia, Dirty
Water: A Red Sox Mystery uncovers the fear immigrants have of law
enforcement authorities at the same time they struggle with the
frustration of desiring justice from the same authorities. Overall,
Dirty Water: A Red Sox Mystery is a well crafted mystery, but
readers may want a little more substance in terms of what motivates
these characters, particularly those from immigrant families, to
overcome their fears and join law enforcement.
"Who the hell is this guy? How did he know about this baby before
we did?"Reviewed by Mary Whipple, 2009-01-17
Filled with all the pizzazz and color one would expect of any
mystery involving Red Sox players from Boston's 2007 World
Series-winning team, Dirty Water is sure to keep Boston fans
smiling as they get inside peeks of the lives and personalities of
their favorite baseball stars. At the same time, however, they will
become caught up in a murder mystery involving seedy superagents
and criminal elements operating between Florida and Caribbean
islands--in addition to the search for the parents of a
one-month-old baby abandoned inside the Red Sox clubhouse.
In the first dozen pages alone, the reader meets Joe Cochran
(clubhouse manager), Terry Francona (the manager, known as Tito),
Manny Ramirez (who won't play unless he has his special
aftershave), fleet-footed Jacoby Ellsbury (who is still learning
how to handle caroms off the Green Monster), knuckleballer Tim
Wakefield (and his special catcher Doug Mirabelli), pitchers
Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima (who are learning Spanish
faster than they are learning English), and "Big Papi" himself,
David Ortiz (whose red Mercedes with a hand-made engine goes from
zero to sixty in less than four seconds).
With Captain Jason Varitek riding escort, the abandoned baby is
taken to the hospital, where he is named "Ted Williams" by the
nurses. The rabid Boston press gets wind of the story from a young
blogger named Jay, whose inside information about clubhouse life is
suspicious, and when the murdered body of Baby Ted's mother is
found in the Back Bay fens, Boston Homicide Detective 1st Grade
Rocky Patel, a brilliant investigator and former boxer, is assigned
to the case. The complex investigation soon expands throughout the
country, and Rocky must draw on his connections with FBI agent
Poppy Rice, with whom he has previously worked, to gain information
that may prevent another murder. Filled with more unexpected twists
and turns than most novels contain in twice the number of pages,
Dirty Water explores the plight of young ballplayers and their
vulnerability to promises made by the unscrupulous.
Authors Mary-Ann Tirone Smith and her Red Sox blogger son Jere have
created a mystery here which will delight Boston Red Sox fans with
its peeks inside the Red Sox clubhouse and its insights into the
players and their relationships. The Fenway neighborhood, with all
its funky charm, its lively residential community, and its endless
places of interest comes alive, even for those who may have not
spent most of their lives visiting Fenway over and over again,
hoping for The Curse to end. For Red Sox fans, this mystery is
great fun--an entertaining way to pass frigid winter nights while
"waiting till next year" and another World Championship. n Mary
Whipple
Dirty Water: A Red Sox MysteryReviewed by Nora Imprescia, 2009-01-13
I just finished reading "Dirty Water: A Red Sox Mystery," written
by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith, and her son Jere Smith. The story begins
with an abandoned baby being found in the Red Sox clubhouse and
quickly moves on to murder, corruption and kidnapping, all against
the backdrop of the 2007 World Series. Two seemingly unrelated
events - the baby and the story of a Dominican baseball player -
are tied together by coincidence and the writings of a mysterious
blogger, who often times has information well ahead of the police.
The detective, Rocky Patel; his partner, Marty Flanagan; the Boston
Police force; the FBI; the blogger, named Jay; and the Boston Red
Sox all team up to tell the story, each delivering a piece of the
puzzle along the way.
The narrative, written by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith, takes you up and
down the streets of downtown Boston, in and around Fenway Park. She
describes the area as well as, if not better than, most native
Bostonians could. The story she weaves draws you in and makes
putting the book down nearly impossible. Her characters come to
life with rich backgrounds and descriptive dialog. ("If he keeps
bitin' his nails like he's doin', he'll end up lookin' like Venus
de Milo.")
Every chapter ends with a blog post from Jay, written by Jere
Smith, who writes the real-life Red Sox blog, A Red Sox Fan From
Pinstripe Territory. Jay's blog mirrors Jere's real-life blog, with
descriptive game details, witty observations and baseball facts
that can only be gleaned from a person who has studied baseball
hard enough to have a doctorate in the sport. Many of the fans and
readers of a Red Sox Fan from Pinstripe Territory make a cameo
appearance in the fictional blog, The Number One Place.
"Dirty Water: A Red Sox Mystery" is a great summer read for
baseball fans and mystery lovers alike.
Twisty plotReviewed by Margaret J. Koehler, 2009-01-06
My son in law read this book in one sitting. He is a hugh Red Sox fan and loved it...
