"Game winner"

In 1947, Branch Rickey, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, shocks America when he announces that he is breaking the color barrier by bringing up Jackie Robinson from the Montreal farm team. However, Mr. Rickey knows that many people do not want to see the line broken so to keep Jackie safe, he hires former World War II marine Joseph Burke to act as a bodyguard.

Robinson and Burke quickly develop mutual respect though they are as different a duo as any pairing on the planet could be. Perhaps more important they learn to trust one another because the stands are filled with many folks who believe no man of color belongs in major league baseball and are willing to do something to cleanse the game including killing Jackie.

This is no DOUBLE PLAY as Robert B. parker instead hits a grand slam home run with this tremendous look back to an era that seems like ancient history with all the accomplishment minorities have made in professional sports though under six decades ago. Jackie is portrayed as a proud individual who lets his on field performance speak for itself (think of the pressure on him) while holding within any acrimony towards those who label him with profanities. Burke is a wonderful counterpoint who sees how delightful a person Jackie truly is and willingly would die to keep his new friend safe. Mr. Parker hits all the bases with this game winner.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted April 25, 2004

Summary

Robert B. Parker fans have been quick to embrace each addition to his remarkable canon, from the legendary Spenser series to the novels featuring Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall. And his occasional forays into the past- Gunman's Rhapsody, a fresh take on Wyatt Earp, and Poodle Springs, based on a Raymond Chandler story-have dazzled critics and confirmed his place among the greatest writers of this century. With Double Play, he presents us with a book he was literally born to write. It is 1947, the year Jackie Robinson breaks major-league baseball's color barrier by playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers-and changes the world. This is the story of that season, as told through the eyes of a difficult, brooding, and wounded man named Joseph Burke. Burke, a veteran of World War II and a survivor of Guadalcanal, is hired by Brooklyn Dodgers manager Branch Rickey to guard Robinson. While Burke shadows Robinson, a man of tremendous strength and character suddenly thrust into the media spotlight, the bodyguard must also face some hard truths of his own, in a world where the wrong associations can prove fatal. A brilliant novel about a very real man, Double Play is a triumph: ingeniously crafted, rich with period detail, and re-sounding with the themes familiar to Parker's readers- honor, duty, responsibility, and redemption.