After reading my book, The Rivalry, by John Feinstein, I was a bit disappointed. I had read some sports book before by him, but that weren’t mystery, and they were very good reads. I don’t think mystery writing is the right fit for Feinstein, as this book was not a good mystery. The ending of my book resulted in the referees being caught by Stevie and Susan Carroll, who tell the Secret Service agents that they are rigging the game for betting purposes and they are escorted out of the stadium. The game then heads into overtime, and finishes there without any end result. I think the ending of this book is far worse than that of Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie. In that short story, the main character, Hercule Poirot, is a fictional Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie. He is very intelligent and is amazing at solving mysteries, and somewhat resembles Sherlock Holmes. The ending of Murder on the Orient Express is far superior to the ending of my book, as it has an unexpected twist that throws the reader off. Poirot is on a train, and he is trying to solve a murder mystery. He is trying to figure out the culprit, but doesn’t realize until the end that there were in fact 13! 13 different people on the train were involved in the murder, which was a crazy twist that no one was expecting. In The Rivalry, the ending was predictable and expected, and was not very entertaining. My book lacked that kind of excitement, and therefore the ending fell short of the ending of Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie.

The Guardian posted a blog regarding mystery novels, titled Why does crime still have such unpardonably low literary status? This post talked about how many book critics do not give the authors of crime books their due credit for their writing. The fans of the these books love to read them, but the authors are critiqued for their book not being legitimate and good writing. In the article, the narrator writes, “Yes, much crime writing is formulaic, simply written and full of cheap thrills”, stating one of the reasons that crime writing is criticized. In my book, The Rivalry, by John Feinstein, this same criticism could be applied, because it is very simply written and had many cheap thrills. An example of this is early in the book, when Secret Service Agent Dowling says to Stevie, the main character, “We have to deliver a gun” (pg. 8). Agent Dowling gave no context to Stevie or the readers, and it created some suspense and curiosity for the readers as to why they had to deliver a gun. A couple of pages later, it is revealed that the gun they had to deliver was a gun to signal the beginning of each quarter, not an actual gun. That is an example of a cheap thrill because it created some suspense but was really no big deal. My mystery book is an example of why crime books are sometimes criticized, because it is not very well written and is so similar what a typical crime book is as it seems to follow a script of how those books are supposed to be written. Not all crime books are like this though, as many are very well written, but don’t receive the respect that they deserve because of all of the typical crime books that are formulaic and all structured the same.

This experience has been crazy so far. First, I am asked to go to the Army vs. Navy football game to be a reporter on the sidelines, then I get to meet up with a good friend, Susan Carol, who is also doing a report on the game. And it turned out that the President, Barack Obama was attending the game? That is insane! This game was supposed to be an intense, grit and grind battle between two rivals that hated each other come game day, but that wasn’t the case today. The two teams were unable to actually play the game, and that was because of the referees. Every time either team came close to scoring, there was always a penalty called against the team that was about to score! Even though something was clearly up, no one thought anything of it since there were bad calls going both ways. But then I remembered what Susan Carol had said about her dad and betting on the over/under for games. The refs are clearly making it so that no one could score, and I suspect that they are throwing the game on purpose in order to win a bet or to win others a bet. Either way, I think that the refs are fixing the game, and Susan Carol and I must get to the bottom of this to ensure that this game can be finished fairly and that the teams can play the smash-mouth football that everyone was looking forward to!

Stevie

The book The Rivalry by John Feinstein covers one of the most bitter rivalries in sports, which is between colleges Army and Navy. These two colleges play each other once a year in what is one of the most competitive and hard fought games in all of college football. Even though The Rivalry is a fiction book, it describes a match that is very real. The main characters, Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson, who are teen reporters, are attending the game to cover the outcome and remark on how well each team played. Instead, they end up having to solve a mystery, as something seems off about the game. Susan, who had attended the Army vs. Notre Dame game with the team a week before, had written an article about how horrible the referees were and how they made biased calls in favor of Notre Dame, the team that ended up winning the game. The same referees were officiating this same game, and their calls were just as poor in the beginning of this game if not worse than before. Something was obviously causing the referees to officiate this way, and Stevie and Susan need to get to the bottom of what is going on with these referees and why the game is being called in this manner. There is also a smaller mystery that involves the president, who is attending the game as well, and the dangers that he may be facing at the game. The book so far is somewhat interesting, yet the mystery is not very engaging. If I had to make a prediction, I would say that the referees are being paid by some inside person on one of the teams, probably Navy since Army had a very bad game called against them the last week, and that they were throwing the game in order for those people to win money. The game and the history of the rivalry is very interesting, but so far, the problem that the characters are faced with seems somewhat boring and rather obvious what the solution to the mystery is.

The book The Rivalry by John Feinstein covers one of the most bitter rivalries in sports, which is between colleges Army and Navy. These two colleges play each other once a year in what is one of the most competitive and hard fought games in all of college football. Even though The Rivalry is a fiction book, it describes a match that is very real. The main characters, Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson, who are teen reporters, are attending the game to cover the outcome and remark on how well each team played. Instead, they end up having to solve a mystery, as something seems off about the game. Susan, who had attended the Army vs. Notre Dame game with the team a week before, had written an article about how horrible the referees were and how they made biased calls in favor of Notre Dame, the team that ended up winning the game. The same referees were officiating this same game, and their calls were just as poor in the beginning of this game if not worse than before. Something was obviously causing the referees to officiate this way, and Stevie and Susan need to get to the bottom of what is going on with these referees and why the game is being called in this manner. There is also a smaller mystery that involves the president, who is attending the game as well, and the dangers that he may be facing at the game. The book so far is somewhat interesting, yet the mystery is not very engaging. If I had to make a prediction, I would say that the referees are being paid by some inside person on one of the teams, probably Navy since Army had a very bad game called against them the last week, and that they were throwing the game in order for those people to win money. The game and the history of the rivalry is very interesting, but so far, the problem that the characters are faced with seems somewhat boring and rather obvious what the solution to the mystery is.