Slugger: An Odle Agency Mystery

With hardscrabble histories from the coal fights of the '30s through the '50s, Ray and Margaret Odle found each other in the autumn of life and then found a niche together investigating murder. With "neither fear nor favor" for the unions that hire them they sort out the issues on the shop floor—not to mention in the management suite and the boardroom—and let the chips fall where they may. It's 1966 at the Louisville Slugger baseball bat factory where two workers have been murdered in gruesome fashion. Called to investigate, Ray and Margaret face threats by long-time enemy thugs from the coal wars and nothing is as it seems— "strike" means you're in not out, "sundown" means neighborhoods where black-owned houses are bombed, and "slope of the grain" has a deadly angle that goes way beyond radio's familiar crack of the bat. The Baltimore Orioles and the Atlanta Braves are in the running for the World Series, as Mel Allen and Red Barber tell it, while the killer is running foul at Slugger. It will take all of the brains, guts and plain old mountain-tough determination of Ray and Margaret to track him down—unless the killer knocks them out of the park first! What Readers Are Saying About Slugger… This book is a pleasure to read as detectives Ray and Margaret Odle think and analyze their way through the maze of corporate and personal greed, mob-run betting, personal and institutional racism, union organizing, union-busting tactics, and the inter-connections between jobs, housing, and power. And we learn from that pleasure the social reality of 60's America in the South, two-thirds of the way from the Civil War to the conflicted politics of America today. Highly recommended.**--**Max Yeh, literature professor and novelist Chuck Barrett knows how to spin a Southern yarn. The dialog in Slugger is fresh and authentic …These characters are clever, wry, and authentic. Slugger is not your ordinary historical detective story. It's not your ordinary anything. But it's a damn good read.--James E. Turner, historian and author From a social perspective, this was good history. But it was also a very well written detective novel, engaging and often lyrical**--Robin Tuttle, attorney** I enjoyed traveling Barrett's trail of 60's Americana - one with sawdust, baseball, blood, bible and booze.--J Toner, artist and baseball enthusiast Barrett's personal experience in a union shop provides a tone of authenticity. A wild tale, with enough gravitas to give it balance makes this a fun and compelling read.--J H, photographer and author