Last Shot: a Final Four Mystery - John Feinstein

Genre: Mystery
Grades 5 & up

John Feinstein is an experienced sports reporter who has written for The Washington Post and Sports Illustrated. His experience really shows in Last Shot: a Final Four mystery. As the title implies, this book is a mystery story set at the 2005 NCAA men’s basketball Final Four.

The set up for this story is not much of a stretch for Feinstein. Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson are eighth graders that won a student sports writing competition. The prize for winning the competition was an all expenses paid trip to cover the NCAA Final Four in New Orleans. Stevie couldn't be more different than Susan Carol. He’s a short UConn fan from Philly who absolutely hates Duke; she’s a tall Duke fan from North Carolina, the daughter of a preacher. While they don’t get along at first they are soon put in a position where they are forced to rely on each other and work as a team.

Of the four teams at the Final Four, Minnesota State has got to have the best story. They are the Big 10 champs, their star player, Chip Graber, is the coach’s son and the possible number one pick in the upcoming NBA draft and they have momentum going into the Final Four. To most people it seems that Chip has got it made. Stevie and Susan Carol soon realize this is not true when they accidentally overhear a backroom conversation between Chip and an unknown character. Someone is blackmailing Chip – he must lose the final game against Duke or else his dad will lose his job and his team will be stripped of all of their wins. Thus begins Stevie and Susan Carol’s quest to figure out who is blackmailing Chip, why and how the blackmailer is doing it, and what two eighth graders can do to stop it. Little do they know that in trying to answer these questions they will put their lives at risk.

This is a very well written book. Feinstein does a great job of showing what the Final Four is like behind the scenes – the press, the crowds, and how money affects the game. If this book has a downside it would be that in his attempt to make the book an authentic account of the Final Four, Feinstein may confuse non-sports fans. He uses lots of names that would be familiar to the sports fan but not to the average person. This also may have an affect on the staying power of this book. The names he uses will ring a bell with today’s sports fan but possibly not tomorrow’s.

This book is appropriate for younger teens. The sports angle will certainly hook some kids, particularly boys, but at its heart this is a mystery book. I would definitely recommend it to someone looking for a dramatic mystery wrapped in a sports shell.