As Stevie and Susan Carol team up with Chip to uncover the intricacies of the blackmail plan-and to try to foil it-the author's plotting entails some fancy footwork that will keep readers on their toes. Though they can't see the culprit during this conversation, it takes the youngsters no time at all to identify him as a member of MSU's faculty-ironically, an ethics professor. Yet the pace picks up when Feinstein casts the two aspiring young sports journalists in additional roles of sleuths: the pair overhears a man blackmailing Chip Graber, the star player (and son of the coach) of the Minnesota State team to throw the championship game against Duke. The story starts slowly with some superfluous dialogue and a surfeit of detail about specific players, coaches, sports writers and announcers. Taking center court is 13-year-old Stevie, who-along with Susan Carol, another eighth grader-landed tickets and press passes to the weekend's games by winning a writing contest sponsored by the U.S. ) novel set during a Final Four basketball tournament in New Orleans. Sports and mystery get equal play in sportswriter and adult author Feinstein's ( A Season on the Brink
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