The Setup Man

January 6, 2014
Monday’s clever debut introduces 35-year-old Johnny Adcock, a Major League Baseball player winding down a 13-year pro career and developing a sideline as an investigator whose clientele consists primarily of fellow ballplayers. Backup catcher Frankie Herrera approaches Adcock, who has developed a reputation as a dependable setup man for the Bay Dogs of San Jose, Calif., about an embarrassing sex video featuring wife, Maria. Even before Adcock begins to investigate, the case takes a deadly turn, and Herrera’s problem morphs into a case of murder, prostitution, and sex trafficking that paints a target on Adcock’s own back. Monday deftly describes the perks and pitfalls of life in pro ball—the highs, the lows, the boredom, the fragility—and the temptations. Monday, the pseudonym of Nick Taylor (author of the historical novel The Disagreement), has delivered a rare double—a book that succeeds as both a mystery and a baseball novel. Agent: Jennifer Carlson, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.

January 1, 2014
A throwback Southern California mystery in modern pinstripes, this book leaves no doubt that the author is a fan of both Sam Spade and Bull Durham's Crash Davis. When a teammate and a 17-year-old girl are found dead in a crashed car, aging relief pitcher Johnny Adcock's secondary skills as a sleuth are put to their most severe test. Johnny is in his final stretch with the San Jose Bay Dogs, a fictional major league squad. The dead teammate, backup catcher Frankie Herrera, had asked for help on a blackmail scheme involving an old porno film his wife appeared in. The girl in the car with Frankie, it turns out, was a prostitute, one of many controlled by an insidious cartel that targets baseball towns. Far from grief-stricken, Frankie's widow is involved in the operation. So, in classic fashion, is just about everyone. Though a rookie, first-time novelist Monday writes with a smooth, easygoing authority, wryly referencing noir and baseball fiction rather than trying to reinvent them. Johnny's internal monologue can't compete with Kevin Costner's character's, but there's still fun to be had in watching him be crafty enough to strike out a former battery mate on a breaking ball but cocky enough to give up a game-winning home run on a fastball the next time he faces him. Johnny is in worse pain watching the ball's flight than when he is beat up, tied up and knocked unconscious by the bad guys. A treat for readers of mystery or baseball novels, this debut will be especially enjoyable for fans of both.

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Starred review from March 1, 2014
Johnny Adcock knows he's fortunate. He's paid $1.5 million per year for about 10 minutes' work, about 70 times a year. He's the Setup Man, whose job is to pitch the eighth inning, or even to pitch to a single left-handed batter. But he's also a realist. At 35, he's a senior citizen, a torn ligament away from retirement. So he moonlights as a PI, solving the myriad problems that can befall suddenly rich, usually headstrong young men. In this debut, Adcock's client is teammate Frankie Herrera, who is concerned that porn tapes starring his wife may soon surface on the Internet. But before Adcock can even begin to investigate, Frankie is dead in an auto accident. What Adcock finds is a convoluted mix of prostitution, murder, Mexican cartels, and retired ballplayers. And while he's detecting, he's traded to another team, then abruptly waived. Monday's plot is inventive, but it's the verisimilitude of Adcock's baseball life that makes this one a delight. Adcock is a solid MLB citizen, but he's aware of the many quirks endemic in baseball's manners and mores, and he shares them freely with the reader. Here's hoping he has many more seasons and many more cases.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)