The Babe Ruth Deception (A Fraser and Cook Mystery Book 3) by David O. Stewart

The Babe Ruth Deception (A Fraser and Cook Mystery Book 3) Reviews

• 
  Magdalena aka A Bookaholic Swede

  This may seem like an odd choice for me to read since I've not a sports person. However, I kind of like baseball, not like I'm that interested in watching it on the telly, but I've seen a lot of movies with the sport, and I like the game. And, of course, Babe Ruth is a legend, and it was Babe Ruth that got me interested in the book that and the 20s setting that I love to read about (and watch movies from and about).
  
  Now, I would love to say that the racism in this book is a thing of the past. But, I would be lying. Yes, it's a bit different in the US nowadays, although the racism has more or less adapted itself to this world's view. Back in the 20s, however, was it hard for a white man/woman to date a black man/woman and that is something that the book portrays very well when Cook's son Joshua and Fraser's daughter Violet falls for each other. Joshua career in bootlegging is also an interesting aspect of the book and very suitable since bootlegging is a big thing back then. I liked reading about that and the trouble around it.
  
  Then we have the main storyline, the man himself Babe Ruth. Well, he is an interesting person. Now the whole thing about the throwing the 1919 World Series and the problem that causes Babe Ruth was interesting to read about, although I must admit that the problem around the game, etc. isn't something that really interested me since sport and gambling aren't high on my interest list. But, I did find the storyline enjoyable, thanks to Babe Ruth who really made a big impression.
  
  I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy for an honest review!
• 
  Paul

  Nice continuation in the series, and a learned a bunch about 1920's New York City, including an explosion at the J.P. Morgan Bank.
• 
  Laura

  An interesting portrait of the times, the early 1920s. While the title definitely makes one think baseball, there is much more going on here. Many of the issues that contribute to situations in the book are still present in society today.
  Gambling and bootlegging and other endeavors of an underworld network are not so different from dark business dealings still present today. Parents who are concerned about poor choices made by children, even when those children are technically adults. People who want to get the most advantage of publicizing a talent or personality while they are a hot property, who want a piece of the financial pie before it cools.
  Seamlessly blending fact and fiction, this novel was a fascinating read.
  It did make me want to revisit the actual new reports of the time.
  Eliza Fraser was as intriguing a character to me as any of the men.
  
  I will be checking into other books by this author.
• 
  Peter Ackerman

  This book is an excellent, well researched historical mystery. When I picked this up I did not know it was the third in a series featuring Dr. Fraser and his Broadway talent agent wife Eliza as well as an African American formal baseball player "Speed" Cooley.
  
  The good news is that I did not have to read the others to be right up to date on this work. The majority of the story involves gamblers trying to use young baseball phenom "Babe" Ruth for their purposes. Add to the mix tension between the two protagonist families when their children - one white and one black begin a romantic relationship.
  
  The novel is well researched, well plotted, and it kept my interest throughout. I am looking forward to going back and reason the first two books in the series with the hope that there will be more installments to come!
• 
  Nicole Girolomo

  If you like historical fiction and baseball this is a great book for you. Even though Babe Ruth is only a small part in the story his presence looms large as I'm sure it did in real life. The several plots mingled well and the story kept me engaged. Will look for more by this author.
• 
  Meg - A Bookish Affair

  "The Babe Ruth Deception" is the third book in David O. Stewart's Dr. Jamie Fraser and Speed Cook series. There are a few story lines in this book. The first one concerns the title: in this book, Babe Ruth is already a well-established baseball player. He is still well known for being an excellent ball player but scandal now threatens to color his legacy. Another story line has to do with Fraser's daughter and Cook's son. Violet Fraser is white. Joshua Cook is black and in the bootlegging business. In the 1920s, interracial relationships are frowned upon and alcohol sales are illegal. Fraser and Cook have their plates full between protecting the Babe and their families.
  
  This is indeed the third book in the series and I have to tell you that I haven't read the first two books. I do wonder that if I had read them, if this book would have resonated with me a little more. This book dives right into the action, which is great, but as far as characters go, it feels very much like we are jumping in the middle of things (which we are) but makes for unfriendly territory for those new to the series.
  
  I am not really a sports person but Babe Ruth is one of those names that transcends the sport that he played in. I loved getting to see a very different side of him in this book. He is making a silent film and spends his days being caked in make-up to show well on film and then going to play a game. Some of the thoughts (and quips) he has during this are very funny. I also found the light that the author shed on the scandal he faces in the book really interesting.
  
  I was also very interested in the relationship between Violet and Joshua. Now not having read the first two books, I can't say for sure but in this book, the love and relationship seems to come up very quickly. I would have liked a little more of a lead up and a little more of a build up to make their story feel a bit more real to me.
  
  The writing of the story was good. There were a few parts that felt a little slow to me and others that left me wanting a bit more detail. Overall, this was an interesting take on a past time!
• 
  Carole Rae

  I did not read the first two, but this did well as a stand alone. There seems to be some references I didn't get, but other than that this did well.
  
  The beginning was slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow and it took forever to get into the story, but once I got into it I could not put this down. I wanted to find out what happens next.
  
  I've always found Babe Ruth to be an interesting person, so I did like his POV the most over everyone. Sure he wasn't the best of men, but he was a man of his time so it's partially forgivable. The other characters were okay. Eliza was my second favorite.
  
  This was really sad in a lot of ways because there was so much racism back in the day. I was really rooting for the love story, but its dang near impossible due to the society and how frowned upon interracial relationships were.
  
  The author does know his baseball history and really brought the world to life. I enjoyed the mystery and journey. Do I believe that they threw the games? Possibly. Money does speak loudly.
  
  In the end, the beginning was slow and it took me a long time to enjoy the story. The characters were okay. I really only liked Eliza and Babe. If you like mysteries and some baseball history. Out of five stars, I'll give this a three.
  
• 
  Jan

  I'm a history geek, so the idea of bootleggers, gangsters, and a national hero, all in a setting that only recently was recognized by the Baseball bigwigs really made me want to read this one. Not because I geek baseball (there are others in the family for that), but because of all the other stuff that went on 100 years ago. There's the personal story about interracial dating that was so out of the question, the bombing on Wall street, All Black baseball teams, illegal gambling and the Chicago Sox scandal, Babe Ruth's inability to believe that he was being made a chump, and other sidelines. I learned a lot, but others in my family ought to really like it even more. The publisher's blurb covers a lot and I don't do spoilers.
  Narrator L. J. Ganser is quite appropriate for the material and was easy to listen to.
  I won this audiobook in a giveaway. Yay me!
• 
  Art

  Babe Ruth, in all of his larger than life glory, is the central point of this historical fiction mystery.
  
  The Babe is making a movie and has just started his career with the New York Yankees. But the gamblers who fixed the 1919 World Series may have something on the sultan of swat. And it may affect the 1918 World Series and the future of baseball.
  
  Dr. Jamie Fraser (whose wife bankrolled Babe's movie) and former baseball player Speedwell Cook join forces for their third adventure.
  
  Besides Babe, they have to deal with the aftershock of a Wall Street anarchist bombing that injures Fraser's daughter and the general corrupt unpleasantness that seems to capture the tone of New York City in the early 20's.
• 
  R Z

  2.5 rounded up.
  
  It took awhile (like, almost a third of the way into the book) for me to get into it, but it also lost me like 30 pages after that.
  
  Bootlegging, mobsters, and baseball— it's a really great premise, but something in it (maybe the writing style? Changing POVs with some a lot stronger than the others?) just seemed, I don't know, off to me.
  
  There's nothing inherently wrong with the novel, I just think it's not for me.
• 
  Jennifer

  I don’t get into gambling or baseball all that much but I love history! So while this story was mostly about dealings in things that are lost on me, it was still interesting as they combined real events, that I was able to learn more about, into a fiction story. It was well written so even the parts that I don’t understand, mostly the underground gambling world, I still enjoyed the overall story told.
• 
  Joe Slavinsky

  Did not finish this book. It was just OK. The story was relatively well told, but I really didn't care for any of the characters. I picked it up at the library(glad I didn't spend money on it!). The title piqued my interest. I'm sure others will enjoy this book, and I welcome them to their opinions.
• 
  Lauren

  The Babe Ruth Deception was a decent book. Not my typical book choice and it seemed to be a little slow moving. It was interesting to think about the racial dynamics back then. I would recommend it to people who are interested in baseball and/or Babe Ruth.
• 
  Ruth Feathers

  Warning: strong language used.
• 
  Sara

  I love baseball, especially baseball history which is often "romantic" and, for Americans, a wonderful way to view history itself. There are a number of good baseball mysteries available that take place in the early 20th century and bring the era to life for a fan like me. So, it was with great anticipation, that I opened The Babe Ruth Deception.
  All in all, I was disappointed. This yarn is not compelling and when I would put the book down, I would force myself to pick it up again. I will add here that I am a reviewer for Netgalley and unless the book is unreadable, I will always finish the book.
  The author knows his baseball history and is meticulous in presenting it accurately. As he says at the end, it is all too easy for any reader to spot inaccuracies. Taking on The Babe is quite an undertaking as he was larger than life and, some say, the greatest baseball player of all time.
  Yet, in some ways, he is incidental to the story which is about prohibition, racism in baseball and mob related activities in baseball and alcohol. The story revolves around returning soldiers after WWI and how they moved on. The white soldiers mostly got back into their lives. The black soldiers, no matter how heroic they were, were scorned and neglected by American society and government and often forced into illegal practices just to make a living. And so it is here starting with the terrorist act of blowing up a bank on Wall Street and a young black man rescuing a young white woman that he had once met in France. They fall in love much to the horror of both sets of parents and the story moves on from there. The Babe seems to appear in every aspect of the multitude of incidents that involve the two families. His love of women and spending money thoughtlessly lies at the core of the conclusion to the book.
  I really wanted to like this book. I didn't dislike it but it didn't flow smoothly for me. The parents of Violet, the young white woman, seemed totally mismatched. The mother was not likable. Her father and Joshua's father had known each other during the war. There was a tension in the relationship but it wasn't clear if it was because of the color of their skin or something that happened before the book began. On Amazon, the book is listed as a Frazer and Cook mystery. Frazer is Violet's father and Cook is Joshua's father. This implies that they were involved in the earlier books or at some point were partners in solving mysteries. I suspect that the author may have been trying to underscore the fact that relationships between blacks and whites were never easy at that time no matter the nature or the closeness of the people involved. But I'm only guessing.
  If you like baseball history, this book may be of interest. A silent movie, Heading Home, in which Ruth was the star turns out to be a real production and the author tells us where we can find it on YouTube. It is, in fact, as awful as implied. I had never heard of it and watched much of it just to see what Babe Ruth looked like in his early years with the Yankees. I also did not know of the effort by baseball commissioner Landis to indict the 1918 Red Sox in a similar scandal, especially Ruth, as the Black Sox scandal of 1919.
  So, in the final conclusion, this book as history is quite interesting but as a mystery and novel does not hold together for me in the compelling way that I like my mysteries.
• 
  Homerun2

  3.5 stars
  
  This is the third entry in the Jamie Fraser/Speed Cook series, all based on actual historical incidents. This one is set in the early 20's and features several historic larger than life figures, including Babe Ruth, and gambler and mob boss Arnie Rothstein. The dust has not yet settled from baseball's 1919 Black Sox scandal which allegedly Rothstein was involved in. Babe Ruth owes money to Rothstein and is being blackmailed for an undisclosed (til the end) indiscretion. Meanwhile Fraser and Cook's son and daughter have become romantically involved, a dangerous situation for an interracial couple at that time, and both sets of parents are unhappy and worried.
  
  These books are interesting in their use of actual history as background, and the two main characters have an unusual relationship. Fictionalized history is tricky to pull off, and Stewart does a pretty good job. Sometimes the dialogue and particularly Babe Ruth's characterization are awkward and a bit stilted.
  
  I received an ARC from Net Galley in return for an honest review.
• 
  Jim Blessing

  This was a book about Babe Ruth's involvement in the 1918 World Series, which was likely thrown by Max Flack of the Chicago Cubs. There is a book called The Original Curse that discusses this.
• 
  Lance

  Baseball sections were excellent as they show the author's extensive knowledge of baseball history at the time. But the story and the characters were not believable for me and I struggled to get thorough this book. Giving three stars for an overall grade