From Publishers Weekly
Most of New York Daily News columnist and ESPN commentator Lupica's work, fiction (Red Zone, etc.) and nonfiction (Summer of '98, etc.), is grounded in the world of sports. This thriller/mystery tells of a high school basketball team whose winning season is threatened by the murder of its manager, Bobby Ferraro, and allegations of sadistic initiation rites. Former sportswriter and television commentator Ben Mitchell has quit the business and retired to self-imposed exile in South Fork, his Long Island hometown, after one of his columns exposed a coach's lies about his war record, which led to the coach's suicide. Ben spends his days reading newspapers, watching television and endlessly rehashing his responsibility for the coach's death. When novice sportswriter Sam Perry, a high school senior, shows up with what looks like a sensational story, Ben finds his old reporting juices flowing again. Soon the two of them are crashing around town investigating Ferraro's murder, angering the citizens of South Fork, who want nothing to interfere with their team's climb to the state championship. Real-life news reports of out-of-control hazing by high school sports teams give Lupica's tale a ripped-from-the-headlines thrill, but the slow pace and predictable plot may tire readers not fascinated by the sports angle. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Famed journalist Ben Mitchell has "retired" to his eastern Long Island hometown of South Fork, having exposed L.A. Dodger manager Tom Robards for lying about serving as a marine in Vietnam. Humiliated, Robards has committed suicide. And now Mitchell only wants to be left alone. However, he can't avoid a scandal unfolding before his eyes: South Fork High School might have the best basketball team in the nation, but team manager Bobby Ferraro is dead, and Drew Hudson, a player on the team, has been brutally assaulted but won't say who did it. Was it the athletically gifted but troubled DeShawn "Show" Watkins, who has just transferred from the South Bronx to South Fork? His brother, Antoine, a cop gone bad? Or coach Ken Glass, who will do almost anything to safeguard the upcoming season? Or Detective Commander Hank Bender, whose son could pull a scholarship from a South Fork championship? Sam Perry, a Ben Mitchell wanna-be who's been bird-dogging the story for the local paper, has now come to Mitchell for help. As a mystery novelist, Lupica is a great sportswriter. This is a fairly predictable story, but with dialogue that has some snap and a sports setting that's credible. And count on Lupica's fine reputation to create demand. Alan Moores
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Harlan Coben
Too Far is surprising, dark...stunning, a great novel of suspense, filled with twisting plot, crackling dialogue and unforgettable characters.
Patricia Cornwell
Brisk writing and bristling with suspense. Too Far is too smart to figure out. (You won't). It's terrific.
Robert B. Parker
It's simple, you can write or you can't. Lupica can. And Too Far proves sit again.
Book Description
The biggest thing that's ever happened to the Long Island town of South Shore is its high-school basketball team, blessed with two players of national caliber and the white-hot attention of the media. Not even the death of the team's manager can dampen the enthusiasm for long, but then a kid on the high school paper begins to hear things-stories of brutalities at a team retreat, of hazing that went over the line . . . of murder. But no one wants to know, and at every step, the ranks close against him-the school, the parents, the police, the town fathers. Soon the threats begin, then the physical intimidation, and even after he recruits a fallen-from-grace city newsman named Ben Mitchell to help him, the incidents get uglier-and more dangerous.
"You always kill for a big story," Mitchell tells him. "You don't get killed for one." But it may already be too late. Things may have gone too far.
For years, such top thriller writers as Harlan Coben, Elmore Leonard, and Carl Hiaasen have praised Lupica for his tightly wound plots, rich characters, and dialogue "that is alone worth the price" (Leonard). Now Lupica joins their ranks. Too Far is a major novel of suspense-and a book that makes us all look in our own backyards.
About the Author
Mike Lupica is the author of fifteen books, most recently Red Zone. His columns for the New York Daily News are syndicated nationwide, and he is a regular on ESPN's The Sports Reporters.
Too Far FROM THE PUBLISHER
"The biggest thing that's ever happened to the Long Island town of South Shore is its high school basketball team, blessed with two players of national caliber and the white-hot attention of the media. Not even the death of the team's manager can dampen the enthusiasm for long, but then a kid on the high school paper begins to hear things - stories of brutalities at a team retreat, of hazing that went over the line...of murder. But no one wants to know, and at every step, the ranks close against him - the school, the parents, the police, the town fathers. Soon the threats begin, then the physical intimidation, and even after he recruits a fallen-from-grace city newsman named Ben Mitchell to help him, the incidents get uglier, more dangerous." "You always kill for a big story," Mitchell tells him. "You don't get killed for one." But it may already be too late. Things may have gone too far.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Most of New York Daily News columnist and ESPN commentator Lupica's work, fiction (Red Zone, etc.) and nonfiction (Summer of '98, etc.), is grounded in the world of sports. This thriller/mystery tells of a high school basketball team whose winning season is threatened by the murder of its manager, Bobby Ferraro, and allegations of sadistic initiation rites. Former sportswriter and television commentator Ben Mitchell has quit the business and retired to self-imposed exile in South Fork, his Long Island hometown, after one of his columns exposed a coach's lies about his war record, which led to the coach's suicide. Ben spends his days reading newspapers, watching television and endlessly rehashing his responsibility for the coach's death. When novice sportswriter Sam Perry, a high school senior, shows up with what looks like a sensational story, Ben finds his old reporting juices flowing again. Soon the two of them are crashing around town investigating Ferraro's murder, angering the citizens of South Fork, who want nothing to interfere with their team's climb to the state championship. Real-life news reports of out-of-control hazing by high school sports teams give Lupica's tale a ripped-from-the-headlines thrill, but the slow pace and predictable plot may tire readers not fascinated by the sports angle. Agent, Esther Newberg. (Jan.) Forecast: Lupica's many fans will like this one, but don't look for interest among general thriller readers. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
the death of a high school basketball coach and rumors of violent hazing, a washed-up newspaperman finds himself recruited to discover what's really up with the team. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
The famed sportswriter turns to high-school basketball for his latest and shows he's got some game. Famed fictitious sportswriter Ben Mitchell has packed it in. As the direct result of a story he wrote, a man is dead, by suicide, and so the hair-shirted Mitchell is in self-exile in South Fork, Long Island, his hometown, where he's spent the past six months trying to get used to the idea that he's an ex-famed sportswriter, trying to convince himself there are vocational alternatives even for a born reporter. Not easy. In fact, for him, not possible, as he learns when young Sam Perry seeks his help. Young Sam, a senior at South Fork High as Mitchell was before him, has stumbled onto a story that scares him. And well it should. It has to do with the unsolved murder of Bobby Ferraro, manager of the South Fork High School basketball team, seen by some as the nation's best. Bobby's death, Sam has reason to believe, might be related to murky behavior (think Deliverance) involving star players. In South Fork, a town emotionally invested to the hilt, investigative journalism aimed at the beloved Hawks is an invitation to a ride on a rail. Sam knows that. So does Mitchell. Ink-stained wretches that they are, however, neither can resist. Lupica (Red Zone, 2003, etc.) hasn't exactly shot the lights out here-plotting goes a bit loose toward the end-but the story is timely and competently told. Agent: Esther Newberg/ICM
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