Strike Three, You're Dead

First published by Walker & Company in 1984, Strike Three, You're Dead introduced both Richard Rosen, a new voice in crime fiction, and his sleuth, Harvey Blissberg, a former Red Sox center fielder, now playing for a lowly expansion team in Providence, Rhode Island. Both were immediately hailed as fresh and important additions by critics and readers, and Rosen won the MWA's Edgar Allan Poe Award for best first novel. Sixteen years later, the impact of that book remains: it was chosen by mystery booksellers as one of the hundred best novels of the twentieth century. With the baseball season starting, we're proud to be bringing the book back to readers as we prepare to release a new Harvey Blissberg baseball mystery, Mean Streak, in time to celebrate the first World Series of the twenty-first century.

Penzler Pick, September 2001: Originally published in 1984 and winner of the prestigious Edgar Award for Best First Novel, Strike Three, You're Dead is a brainy baseball mystery that quickly developed a cult following. Burrowing into the lives of troubled clients, former Red Sox center fielder Harvey Blissberg was a character one could take to heart: all too human in his frailties and able to fit, however uneasily, his morality to the exigencies of the situation. He commonly finished his cases having learned as much about himself as about the crime, the criminal, the victim, or his client.

Three entries in the series followed: Fadeaway, Saturday Night Dead, and World of Hurt. Now, 10 years after the last of these, Rosen is about to resume his hero's career with Dead Ball, coming out in November. In anticipation, Rosen's publisher has reissued Strike Three, You're Dead.

Read it to get acquainted with Harvey, known to his teammates as the Professor because of his fondness for Harris tweed jackets and hardcover books. Read it to learn all about that dysfunctional family, the Providence Jewels, the American League expansion team to which Harvey has descended from the former heights of the Boston Red Sox outfield. Read it to get psyched for Dead Ball and the return of Harvey Blissberg. But, most of all, read it to understand why Strike Three, You're Dead won an Edgar, was called by The Denver Post "one of the best sports detective novels of all time," and was named one of the century's best mysteries by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. --Otto Penzler