Reviews

“I am probably late discovering a brilliant mystery writer named Richard Rosen, whose books are set in sports.”

—Mike Lupica, New York Daily News

 

“A superb first novel.”

New York Times Book Review “Notable Books of the Year, 1984”

 

“Robert B. Parker and Ed McBain might want to start looking over their shoulders, Richard Rosen (and Harvey Blissberg) are that good!”

The Philadelphia Enquirer

 

“In his first mystery, Mr. Rosen has a hit a home run.”

—Newgate Callendar, New York Times Book Review

 

“Something to celebrate, an impressive first novel…and what may be the most literate and original sports mystery of the year.”

San Francisco Chronicle

 

“Fans of both the national sport and of whodunits should pick up this brilliant first mystery.”

The Washington Post

 

“One of the best sports detective novels of all time!”

The Denver Post

 

“One of the hundred favorite mysteries of the century.”

—The Independent Mystery Booksellers Association

 

“Rosen’s Strike Three You’re Dead is a major league mystery novel, written with championship wit and unerring grace and style.”

—Dan Wakefield

 

“Like one of his pitchers, Rosen warms up after a couple of innings, the fastball starts hopping, the curve breaking, and the next thing you know you’re promising yourself just one more chapter of this whodunit, even though it’s after bedtime.”

The Boston Globe

 

 

“If you want a good mystery and good writing—sensitive, intelligent, graceful, and gritty prose (with something of Hammett’s punch and Chandler’s poetry)—and a good baseball novel to boot, then you must read Richard Rosen’s Strike Three You’re Dead.”

Boston Magazine

 

“The literary equivalent of a home run. Rosen has a deadly eye for detail.”

Newsday

 

“Rosen knows something about baseball as well as good writing. In this, his first novel, he had devised a plot that keeps you turning through 234 pages.”

Sports Illustrated

 

“A triple-homer for baseball/mystery fans…and no strikeout even for those ignorant of the game.”

—Kirkus Reviews  (starred review)

 

“I love mysteries and I just devour them, you know….” [President Clinton] praised Richard Rosen’s baseball murder mystery, Strike Three You’re Dead.”

USA Today, 1992

“This author’s brief, brilliant career proves that our national tradition of detective fiction gets tougher with exercise—remembering that the toughest muscle in the human body is the heart.”

The New York Times Book Review

 

“A diverting, often witty, and well-considered novel.”

The New Yorker

 

“Rosen peoples his pages with characters that seem real, that sound real when they talk. He writes with sensitivity and humor and on top of that, he has a good sense of suspense….Sign me up for the Richard Rosen fan club.”

The Philadelphia Daily News

 

“Like its predecessor, Fadeaway is a brilliant, funny and sometimes sad novel, full of characters so real and affecting that we kept thinking about them long after we’d finished the book.”

The Denver Post

 

“Blends sports and crime in a novel full of snap, crackle, and grace.”

—Robert B. Parker

 

“Gritty characters, slice-of-life dialogue, irony touched with wit and feeling, tension expertly built to a fever pitch….You won’t want to put it down.”

—Kirkus Reviews

 

“Rosen keeps you turning pages…and he does it with wit and style.”

The Boston Globe

 

“Rosen has another winner in Fadeaway….Rosen writes with a light, sure touch…the ending is a corker.”

Washington Post

 

“Couldn’t be more topical, or timely, or more tastefully done.”

Los Angeles Daily News

 

“This stylish, well-plotted thriller is distinguished by the most expert rendering of a villain this side of an Elmore Leonard novel.”

ALA Booklist

 

“Rosen…gives every sign of enjoying a long and distinguished major-league mystery career with Harvey Blissberg in the cleanup spot.”

The Chicago Sun-Times

 

“Blissberg is proof positive that the paradigmatic hero of the Hammett/Chandler tradition remains a compelling figure when you stick him in yuppie context and strip him of his tough accouterments, his hooch and his wound—provided, of course, that you can write as well as Rosen does.”

Partisan Review

“The best in the series. Saturday Night Dead is another grand slam.”

—Philadelphia Inquirer

 

“Black humor, quirky characters and unpredictable plotting make Saturday Night Dead as sharp and fast-moving as, um, a certain late-night comedy show was in its early days.”

The Chicago Sun-Times

 

“The story’s skillful contrasts of edged satire and pathos make it irresistible, the third triumph for Blissberg and his creator.”

Publishers Weekly

 

“Rosen…plainly knows the comedy industry at first hand….You are kept on the edge until the very end.”

The New York Times

 

“It’s three hits in three at-bats for ex-Red Sox outfielder turned detective Harvey Blissberg…An unusual, thoroughly gratifying mystery.”

ALA Booklist

 

“Many of the iconoclastic jokes and sketches that Rosen dreams up for the show could easily fly on “Saturday Night Live,” making this the kind of nasty, knowing satire worth tuning in.”

—Marilyn Stasio

 

“A careful, steady pace erupts in the final minutes for a dazzling conclusion with as many pops and flashes as a fireworks finale.”

The Boston Globe

 

“Rosen’s quick, snappy writing will tickle [your] TV consciousness and may even evoke enough laughs to make [you] exclaim, “Isn’t this special?”

People

 

“Rosen has a found a refreshing means of reviving the whodunit, and making it read like something new….Every scene rings true….A totally engaging performance.”

West Coast Review of Books

 

“Harvey manages to retain his laid-back charm; the author his sharply attuned eye and ear; and, happily, the pace quickens as the plot thickens to produce engrossing entertainment….”

Kirkus Reviews

World of Hurt is a marvelous book…a page-turner rich with engrossing characters, and his feel for the nuances of modern living is quite extraordinary.”

—Jonathan Kellerman

 

“Amid more gumshoes than any of us sees in the real world, Rosen’s Harvey Blissberg maintains a distinguishing authenticity.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer

 

“World of Hurt is a wonderful book and completes Rosen’s first grand slam.”

—E. J. Dionne

 

“Not just a wonderful mystery—a wonderful novel as well.”

—Katha Pollitt

 

“The harm we do to one another in the name of love is the paradox at the heart of this haunting and elegiac mystery.”

San Jose Mercury News

 

“The foreign terrain of the Midwest brings out all the best instincts of this smart sleuth, whose quiet intelligence and dry wit have been much missed since his last appearance….”

The New York Times

 

“Rosen writes with a smooth, compelling attention to environments, be they a suburban sushi bar or the Maine coastline. He reins in his humor with a kind and forgiving feeling for people and shifts gracefully through a range of voices.”

Washington Post

 

“What an unusually thoughtful and intelligent narrative voice, so rare in ‘detective’ fiction.”

—Joyce Carol Oates

“Compelling characters, ingenious plotting, vivid writing, and some pretty great baseball, too—the complete Rosen package.”

—Daniel Okrent, author Nine Innings

 

“The language crackles quick and sharp, full of hard-boiled one-liners, and there is some oddly beautiful writing about the game of baseball. The ugly and graphic history of lynching is a strong plot point, and the final denouement is both shocking and bloody.”

ALA Booklist

 

“In Dead Ball, baseball and race—two enduring, and inextricably intertwined, American fixations—combine in a story filled with appealing characters and spot-on dialogue.”

—S. J. Rozan

 

“R. D. Rosen can weave as good a mystery as any of the top writers of the genre. Dead Ball is socially complex, emotionally compelling, and spot=on when it comes to realistic sports action and dialogue.”

The Providence Phoenix

 

“The characters are unique and memorable, and the writing is witty, luminous, heart-pinching prose by one of the genre’s best, if not the most prolific, practitioners.”

The Cleveland Plain Dealer