I enjoyed Shane Rawley’s first Peter Cobb mystery, Three Strikes You’re Out, in spite of numerous weaknesses in the writing. I went on to buy the second book in the series (for some reason they’re numbered wrong on Amazon), January Freeze.

Our hero Peter Cobb is a former professional baseball player whose career was interrupted by the Viet Nam war and PTSD (this book is set around 1980). He’s beginning to put his life together now, and thinking of trying out for the majors again. In pursuit of personal peace, he has moved to Florida for a while. But he’s soon back in Racine, to help with a family problem. A cousin of his has disappeared in New York City and gotten into prostitution. Peter goes to the Big Apple to rescue her, which of course he does, with style.

Then he’s approached by the CIA, who want him to perform a covert assassination for them.

Seriously.

If it all sounds implausible, it is. The Peter Cobb books are like a big, lolloping dog who just wants to play and cares nothing about his dignity. The writing is only passable, and the author has a tendency to forget what tense he’s writing in. One encounters the occasional unnecessary info dump. The hero is pretty much omnicompetent and seems to have no fear (in spite of his PTSD). Women throw themselves at him wherever he goes.

I can only attribute my enjoyment of these books to the plain fun involved. I like spending time with a hero who doesn’t suffer my shyness and self-doubt. I can’t take these stories seriously enough to worry much about the characters.

What I did not like about this book was a new strain of political correctness – gushing over an admirable “gay” character and little lectures about how Islam is just like Christianity.

I’m not sure if I’m going to read the next book. January Freeze was fun enough, but if the author is going to go all sensitive on me it’s not worth the price.

.