Buy Now from Amazon

Manziuk and Ryan Mystery Series #

In Glitter of Diamonds, the second book in her Manziuk and Ryan series, N. J. Lindquist once again hooks us with deftly-drawn characters, complex story-lines and thought-provoking issues, served up with her unique mix of tongue-in-cheek humor and gentle compassion. This time, she takes readers into the world of major league baseball and its surrounding media. She also asks subtle questions about the prices people are willing to pay to see their dreams come true.

After Stasey Simon, an outspoken sports talk-show host, asks on-air for a volunteer to knock some sense into the home team’s temperamental new pitcher, Toronto Detective-Inspector Paul Manziuk and Detective-Constable Jacqueline Ryan have to hustle to catch a murderer swinging a lethal bat before the case escalates into an international incident.

I have a confession to make: I can’t watch the TV show Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) – no matter what city it is set in.  It isn’t that the forensic science doesn’t interest me – it does (even if it’s not always accurate).  It isn’t that I can’t handle the suspense and mystery – I have enjoyed reading mysteries since I was 9.  No, the reason I can’t watch CSI is that even though at the end they always catch the bad guy, the show is just too depressing.  The victim (or victims as is often the case) is still dead, the family is left grieving and destroyed and even the detective scientists themselves seem sad and alone.

But I can read the “Ryan & Manziuk” mystery series by N.J. Lindquist.  She has found a way to write an intriguing murder mystery and still drop notes of hope and grace into the story that keep me eagerly turning the pages.  I just finished her latest novel “Glitter of Diamonds” – the second in the series – and I have been “turning pages” just about everywhere so that I could see what happened next.

The storyline follows the fictional Toronto baseball team “The Matrix”, that play in the Diamond Dome.  The team hopes to get into the playoffs due to the hot new Cuban pitcher Ricardo Velasquez.  However his pitching arm isn’t the only thing that is super hot – so is his temper.  When he winds up dead there are any number of people with sufficient motive to have done the deed – the older pitcher Ricardo supplanted, his newly arrived wife who finds out Ricardo has been cheating on her, the jilted and mixed up girlfriend … And who are the mysterious owners of the team and the dome ?  What is their part in all of the mystery ?

N.J. Lindquist really shines as an author with the depth and the detail she put into this novel.  I used to be an avid baseball fan, and I can tell you she has the baseball scene down pat.  She also has invested a lot into making each character realistic, from the cynical radio host Stasey Simon to the loyal but lonely fan Lawerence Smith, to the young and naïve writer Ginny Lovejoy.  By the time the murder occurs on page 117, I already had opinions about all the major players and cared about what happened to them.

N.J. Lindquist has an unusual slant for a “Christian writer”.  Rather than write the moral into the storyline she instead ensures that at least one character in each mystery is a Christian and gets a chance to speak his or her own piece.

This would be a great book to introduce to a book club as its sports theme would be well received by men as well as women.  Additionally it would make a good gift as its Christian message is one thread in a well defined tapestry and thus should not be threatening or preachy to those who are not Christ followers.

Review by Susan