Double Switch: A Novel

by T. T. Monday

Overview

Relief pitcher/private investigator Johnny Adcock doesn't have an office; he has the bullpen. That's where he meets Tiff Tate, the femme-fatale stylist responsible for half the looks in Major League Baseball, from Brian Wilson's beard to Big Papi's gold ropes. Tiff has a problem. Her new client, the rookie phenom Yonel Ruiz, has been threatened by a cartel of smugglers. Adcock is her last best hope. As he embarks on this potentially deadly mission, Adcock tangoes with a mysterious, sexy assassin known only as La Loba. And he still has the playoffs to worry about.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101873823
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/21/2017
Series:	Johnny Adcock Series , #2
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

T. T. MONDAY is the pseudonym of novelist Nick Taylor, author of The Disagreement and Father Junípero’s Confessor. Double Switch is his second novel to feature Johnny Adcock, following The Setup Man.

Editorial Reviews

Monday’s Double Switch is a rocket ride of a sports mystery with a wicked curve ball on every smoothly written page. May Johnny Adcock’s careers as a relief pitcher and sleuth motor on for a very long time." 
—David Baldacci, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Guilty
 
"Rollicking good fun for anyone who loves baseball and mysteries, T.T. Monday takes you inside a modern-day baseball clubhouse and imagines a world in which a left-handed bullpen specialist moonlights as a real-world fixer." 
—Molly Knight, New York Times bestselling author of The Best Team Money Can Buy

"Double Switch is a fast-paced, crisply written mystery novel...that balances baseball against underworld vices like sex, drugs, violence, human trafficking — and oh yeah, several dead bodies....Monday’s prose is witty and sharp, and he packs a lot into the plot, which moves briskly to a tidy conclusion."
—The Tampa Tribune

"Monday is at ease in moving among crime, baseball, and romance. The book gains authenticity from its references to real-life figures and situations. And the first-person narrator makes for good company. Monday's second effort, following The Setup Man (2014), is an enjoyable, easygoing sequel that shows off the author's skill at seamlessly mixing genres."
—Kirkus

"Monday (a pseudonym for novelist Nick Taylor) knows his baseball well, creates a mystery out of the very real exploitation of Cuban baseball defectors, and hasan ear for dialogue. Good enough that readers who missed the first Adcock mystery (The Setup Man, 2014) will be eager to catch up."
—Booklist

"Monday handles the baseball action flawlessly with this timely look at the influx of Cuban ballplayers and those eager to take advantage of them."
—Publishers Weekly  

From the Publisher

11/30/2015
In Monday’s solid follow-up to 2014’s The Setup Man, the major league baseball career of San José Dogs Bay reliever Johnny Adcock is winding down. Meanwhile, Adcock has earned a reputation as a problem solver for his teammates and other athletes, but he’s still surprised when Tiff Tate, a high-paid sports consultant “who designs a custom on-field look for each of her clients,” approaches him for help with Cuban refugee Yonel Ruiz, the Colorado Rockies’ star rookie outfielder. According to Tate, Ruiz is being blackmailed by Venezuelans who are holding his family hostage. Ruiz won’t talk to Adcock, Tate isn’t telling him everything, and the person who does dare talk to him about Ruiz is murdered. Adcock’s investigation rubs the MLB’s new director of personnel security the wrong way, which is bad enough, but it also offends others who are much more dangerous. Monday handles the baseball action flawlessly with this timely look at the influx of Cuban ballplayers and those eager to take advantage of them. Agent: Jennifer Carlson, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

2015-12-23
Johnny Adcock, a relief pitcher moonlighting as a private investigator—or is it the other way around now that he's nearing retirement as a big leaguer?—investigates a Cuban slugger who may or may not be who he says he is. A left-handed specialist for the fictional San José Bay Dogs, Johnny is spending time with Connie, his librarian "girl in Denver," during a road trip. There, he becomes involved in the case of Yonel Ruiz, a prodigious rookie outfielder who's being blackmailed by the Venezuelan cartel that smuggled him out of Cuba on a powerboat. They're said to be holding his family until he gives them all his baseball money. Is Ruiz's beautiful, mysterious sister, Enriqueta, who's with him in Colorado, involved in the scheme? (Is she, in fact, the assassin known as La Loba?) After being offered an open invitation to come to her hotel room, Johnny has to take her up on it, at 4:30 a.m., after sleeping with Connie, right? It's all part of the job. And when vivacious marketing expert Tiff Tate, who customizes players' images for big money, needs to have sex with him to relax herself before discussing important things about the case, he has to comply if it helps his sleuthing, right? With all this coupling going on, it's no wonder the suspicious death of Rockies hitting coach Erik Magnusson, a former teammate of Johnny's, quickly fades into the background. But as oversexed and plot-imperfect as the book is, it's a fun read. Monday is at ease in moving among crime, baseball, and romance. The book gains authenticity from its references to real-life figures and situations. And the first-person narrator makes for good company. Monday's second effort, following The Setup Man (2014), is an enjoyable, easygoing sequel that shows off the author's skill at seamlessly mixing genres.

Kirkus Reviews