Let’s Play Ball – Author – Linda Gould – Book Review

Linda Gould covered her bases for excitement, international intrigue, and fraternal jealousy in her novel, Let’s Play Ball.

Superbly written with a friendly voice combined with many intuitive observations of people’s behavior, Linda Gould fills “her ball pen” with a cast of characters ideally stereotyped for her clever plot. She uses Miranda and Jessica, two fraternal twins as reflective protagonists. By doing this she enabled her narration to be voiced through the intimate knowledge of a twin sister, a person that has lived each moment of her sister’s past in a mirror image of life impressions. They have an understanding of each other only a twin can understand, and their relationship is brilliantly challenged, analogous to sports competition, such as baseball teams.

Whereas Miranda has taken a course of choosing a conservative family life with security and routine, Jessica has sought the limelight of high profile sports. She has, what she believes, a predictable and loving relationship with a highly celebrated baseball player when all of a sudden he disappears. The circumstances of his evanescence stirs immediate speculation as a matrix of explanations are pondered by friends, teammates, family and the police.

As a baseball game can be elucidated as being a long, seamlessly uneventful game separated by moments of sheer excitement, so characterizes her book. Linda Gould does retain the reader’s interest and knowledge base of events as she doles out background information unfolding her story in an artful manner. Let’s Play Ball combines the edgy feelings of an ominous police investigation, the intrigue of a missing person of high profile and the cerebral international politics of US-Cuban relationships. Her book scores “runs” during each chapter, and her suspense hits a “home run.”

Combining spirited debates on social issues in her book, Let’s Play Ball is on deck for the intellectual reader that enjoys the Sunday morning editorial news circuit, or perhaps better stated as the intellectual that would rather be at the ball game. Her award winning book, receiving iUniverse Editor’s Choice, is masterfully set with an impeccable galley clad in original cover art of a baseball player swinging in motion. But if you look closely at the uniform, can you identify the team? Perhaps it’s one you never heard of, until now.

write by Eudora