Three Strikes And You're Dead ~ Michael A. Draper

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: XLIBRIS (July 24, 2014)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1499049307
• ISBN-13: 978-1499049305

Purchase Three Strikes And You're Dead here.

Baseball goes on strike. and the fans are not happy. A chat room group "Friends against the baseball strike" rants against the astronomical salaries and greed of the players who have ruined the game for the everyday fans. One member, "The Vindicator" decides to take action to end the strike, and soon some of the highest paid baseball players are being murdered. Who will be next? Can the murderer be stopped? The action and suspense build as the FBI and a trio of clever amateur investigators rush around the country trying to predict where the murderer will strike next, and to discover his identity. This thoroughly modern page turner uses social media in unexpected ways and will keep you enthralled until the last page.

My take on this book:

Baseball is as American as apple pie, and plenty of people build their lives around their favorite players and teams. When the game goes on strike over salaries plenty of fans are unhappy, but a man who likes to call himself "The Vindicator" decides to strike back and teach the baseball industry a  lesson by singling out some of the most high paid, popular stars in the business and murdering them. From the beginning his methods are clever and he doesn't leave many clues behind. It really becomes a race against time to try and figure out who is behind the killings before another star is murdered. Can the trio of Roseanne Kelly, Randy Larkin, and Graham Dunne amateur detectives with the Peterson Detective Agency figure out where the killer will strike next?

Three Strikes And You're Dead by Michael Draper is a  page turning, suspense filled, mystery that allows us to see what is going on in the mind of the killer. From the beginning one can't really imagine where he might strike next, but more than that it's the clever way he pulls off the crimes that really grabs the attention. Descriptive writing not only brings the scenes to life but also creates a sense of realism within the story. While the main story revolves around baseball stars being murdered there are a few secondary stories going on that add balance such as Roseanne dealing with the loss of a husband while trying to figure out how to help her young son JJ through the loss as well. Roseanne and Randy also find their relationship shifting from friendship to something more, thing is Roseanne is fighting it because she fears what a new relationship so soon after her husband's death might do to young JJ.

 I really enjoyed reconnecting with the characters from Splattered Blood, but honestly this is a book that really can be read as a stand alone because Mr. Draper does a wonderful job of filling in enough background information about the main characters so that you don't feel lost. With that said I highly recommend Splattered Blood as well especially to anyone who enjoys reading a fast paced, suspense filled story.