As a utility player, Mickey Rawlings has played for several teams during his career. During the 1921 season he's playing for the Cincinnati Reds. He volunteers to help with an exhibition celebrating the championship team of 1869, as well as the 1919 team that won the World Series. When the exhibit's organizer is murdered, Rawlings doesn't intend to get involved. It seems to have been a burglary gone wrong. A break-in in Rawlings' home changes his mind. It seems that the murderer didn't find what he was looking for at the murder scene. It may be among the surplus memorabilia that the organizer had given to Rawlings shortly before his death. Is the murder connected to the unexplained disappearance of a substitute player from the 1869 team? Or is the cause more recent, linked somehow to the Black Sox Scandal, the gambling scandal that tainted the 1919 World Series? With his baseball career at stake, Rawlings searches both the distant and recent past for the roots of murder.

I thoroughly enjoyed this historical mystery with baseball at its heart. The baseball history doesn't feel like an information dump. Soos makes it an integral part of the plot. I'm familiar enough with Cincinnati to recognize many of the locations mentioned in the book, so I enjoyed that aspect, too. Rawlings is a very likeable protagonist. The mystery plot became convoluted and I'm not sure that I could explain it if I tried. The setting and characters more than make up for any deficiencies in the mystery. I recently discovered that this series is available as downloadable audiobooks from my public library, and I'm looking forward to listening to the rest of the books in the series. ( )

My first book on a Nook. Besides that, I enjoy these mysteries by Soos. There's a lot of good history in them, and he gives you a nice feel for the whole period, as well as baseball history. ( )

Mickey Rawlings is now playing for the Cincinnati Red Stalkings in 1921. They are getting ready to host an exhibit honoring the 1869 team when the person responsible for the exhibit turns up dead. Rawlings realizes there is more to the death than meets the eye, setting out to investigate. I've had this book on my shelf for a long time and had hesitated to pick it up and read it, but I'm really glad that I did. Having lived in Cincinnati during the 1980s and 1990s, I recognized many of the names and locations. I'm not an expert on baseball history by any means, but I can tell that the author has done quite a bit of research to pull off this series with the period detail that he has. Perhaps the thing that struck me most is that there were players and team officials involved in betting on baseball long before Pete Rose. I wonder if this book's narrative was inspired by the Pete Rose controversy that took place shortly before its writing. It's a great read, even if you are not a huge baseball fan. ( )