Review: “One For The Team”
A young adult murder mystery sports thriller – ideal for teenage girl sleuths!
This was my twenty-eighth book I chose via the Reedsy Discovery program, for which I am the single approved reviewer for this new book. This review also appears on Reedsy.
If you’re interested in becoming a Reedsy reviewer (and have the chance to get paid “tips” to review books!) check it out here.
The Premise
Issy is a promising young star athlete on her school’s mediocre basketball team, and a well-rounded young woman despite being raised by only her father, a retired sportswriter. She has an interest in her forensics class at school, and fancies herself a bit of a detective. With a blend of coming-of-age teen drama and her keen eye for uncovering mysteries, Issy tries to figure out why there seem to be sports-related murders cropping up in her town. Meanwhile “The Judge” — the killer, is on the path for revenge, knocking off his past adversaries one by one — and Issy may soon become an unlikely target. Can she solve the case before it’s too late?
The Pros & Cons
This novel was a young adult murder mystery sports thriller — ideal for teenage girl sleuths!
Reading a character like Issy was a breath of fresh air. Far too many young adult novels focus on “popular” or “shy” girl tropes, or have way too much emphasis on the teenagers’ love lives, or teenagers are unnecessarily rude to their parents and angsty for no good reason! Here, we have a young girl who has a lot going for her — she’s a good student (for the most part), she has loyal friends, she’s interested (but not OBSESSED) with boys, and more than anything: she is an athlete with a promising future.
We get to see her close, sweet relationship with her dad, whom she clearly admires, and who was able to raise a decent young woman, in the absence of her mom who couldn’t be bothered with the burden of motherhood. I loved that their relationship is laid-back and contains a degree of respect and camaraderie that is often lacking between father-daughter stories.
I appreciated that Issy’s character was well developed, and we get to see her going about her daily life interacting with her friends, coach, teachers and father — not to mention a certain boy that sparks her interest (and he himself has his own “growing up” to do!) As she becomes drawn to the murders she hears about on the news, her senses click into overdrive as she makes connections that even the expert cops miss.
Issy’s story develops alongside that of “The Judge”, the killer who is on the rampage to avenge those who harmed him in the past. We learn his motives, and even feel pity for him although he is technically the “bad guy” in the story here. He has been wronged, and he has been a victim, and I appreciated that there were sympathetic aspects to his character as well — not everyone is necessarily all good or all evil, and we do get to see “The Judge” struggling with this duality: his deceased wife’s calm reasoning, countered by the vengeful “General” commanding him to commit murder.
My only letdown in this story was that the action takes a good while to get there. Mind you, the teenage sports drama was interesting, and held my interest; and the killer’s story was intriguing, and also held my interest — but it just took awhile to mesh the two entirely different stories and points of view into one cohesive story. There also seemed to be quite a bit of “extra” information that didn’t seem connected to anything, that I could’ve done without — e.g. entire excerpts from her father’s novel seemed to be an odd inclusion (given the genre, I expected it to be some kind of clue — it wasn’t). These minor things aside, nevertheless when the two stories do finally connect, the rest of the story is brilliant and winds to a satisfying end — with Issy triumphantly saving the day, in more ways than one!
Conclusion
Overall, this was a good genre-mashup — it’s not often you get a young adult coming-of-age story that’s also a murder mystery! I loved the main character’s spunk — with a flair of temper and a whole heap of bravery, she’s not afraid to jump right into the fray and tackle a murderer. I can see this book being a hit with an audience of teenage girls, and it gives them a great character to admire. I really loved the characters and the way the author builds and reveals the story, unraveling a tale that is thrilling and beautifully written. This was a pleasurable read, and I would love to read more by this author.
