Deal Me In, Week 22 ~ “In the Tank”

Hosted by Jay @ Bibliophilopolis

“In the Tank” by Andrew Bergman

Card picked: Ace of Diamonds
From: Murder on the Ropes, edited by Otto Penzler

Thoughts: I’m kind of glad that I’m not reading this anthology straight through because there are, when writing mysteries involving boxers, a few plot points that reoccur. It would be a lot more repetitive if I were reading these stories one after the other. Score one for the beauty of Deal Me In.

One of these plots is the boxer who is being coerced into taking a dive. In the case of “In the Tank,” Typhoon Walker is being threatened with death. The problem? Well, Walker’s fight is the four-round undercard. Big money will not be wagered on it, so that probably isn’t the motive. The threat is signed “Friends of White Athletes,” but Walker is small potatoes. Why not a bigger target?

These are the questions that plague Jack LeVine after he’s hired by Walker’s manager-no-agent. Something isn’t right and LeVine’s reporter friend Toots Fellman suspects the local white supremacist…who inconveniently turns up dead.

This is a pretty nicely worked short mystery. It’s full of prototypical characters and situations (which aren’t inherently bad things), and with a decent enough twists. In retrospect, though, I have no idea to what the title refers.

About the Author: I didn’t know that I knew Andrew Bergman. He is the screenwriter of Blazing Saddles, Oh God! You Devil, The Freshman, and, a personal favorite of mine, Honeymoon in Vegas. Yes, I have a soft spot for Nicolas Cage. He’s also written three novels featuring Jack LeVine.