Tag Archives: Peter Cobb

Fiction, Reviews

‘January Freeze,’ by Shane Rawley

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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.

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Fiction, Reviews

‘Peter Cobb: Three Strikes You’re Out,’ by Shane Rawley

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Shane Rawley, author of Peter Cobb: Three Strikes You’re Out, is a former major league baseball player. That’s no guarantee of writing ability, but I was delighted to discover that he tells a very good story.

His hero is Peter Cobb of Racine, Wisconsin. Pete used to be a major league ball player, and was a pretty good one. But something happened to him when he was drafted for the Vietnam War (this book is set in the 1970s). Now he’s coasting through life, drinking too much, avoiding responsibility and commitment (though he works out and boxes, which will be helpful in his immediate future). He works for a used car dealer, cleaning and delivering cars.

But there’s one thing that could persuade him to disturb his peace – a redheaded girl named Ronnie, on whom he’s had a crush since his school days. Ronnie’s father is a career criminal, and she’s happy not to have heard from him in a while. But now she gets word that he was killed in a warehouse explosion in the Southwest. She asks Pete to accompany her to Phoenix, where they meet a DEA agent who tells them her father was one of their informers. He gives them a key which her father left behind for her. That key will attract a lot of attention among the criminal element, forcing Pete to demonstrate (and discover) what he’s really capable of.

Peter Cobb: Three Strikes You’re Out takes a little time getting going – but in this case I didn’t mind. Pete interested me from the start, and I wanted to see how he fit into his world. I like burned-out characters as heroes, and Pete was intriguing and believable. The writing is not the very highest quality, and the plotting’s a little loose, but it’s pretty good. Shane Rawley is a promising novelist.

Christian faith is treated with respect, which I appreciated, though (as you’d expect) premarital sex is taken for granted. So cautions for the usual grownup stuff.

But all things considered, I highly recommend Peter Cobb: Three Strikes You’re Out.