Material Witness

Marcus Trescothick opens up

I once had the somewhat dubious pleasure of interviewing Marcus Trescothick. The meeting took place in the Media Centre at Lord's, in July 2004. I probably spent 30 or 40 minutes talking to him, much of it discussing his fluctuating form with the bat and the forthcoming prospect of facing a new generation of West Indian pace bowlers. The result was published in the Financial Times,  and can be found here. 

By the time I met Trescothick, I had been writing about sport and sportsmen for the FT for about 15 months and had interviewed many sportsmen - and even ghosted a column for England flanker Richard Hill that appeared in the FT during the 2003 Rugby World Cup.

And what I had learned in those 15 months was not to expect too much of interest from the mouths of sportsmen and women. Many considered talking to the media a chore and behaved accordingly. Others were suspicious and therefore guarded and subsequently dull. Few had any genuine insight to offer into their sport or their own performances and most had also been drilled by media minders to toe a particular corporate line. 

I had no particular problem with any of this. What right had I to expect Churchillian oratory or Socratic insight from men who hit balls for a living or women who pushed stones down a runway of ice? None. And I fully understood that it was not in their interests to court controversy. So you learned simply to make the best of it. Get what you could and try and make something of it. You can judge whether I acheived that in the case of Trescothick.

The England batsman, as I had suspected he would, fell more into the guarded and slightly suspicious category. He was courteous but not particularly friendly (and why should he have been?) He was perhaps slightly more open about his own patchy form with the bat than I might have expected, but did not have anything particularly interesting to say.

Only once during the conversation did I feel I connected with him in any way and that was when I asked him about Mark Lathwell, his former Somerset colleague. Lathwell was one of the most gifted batsmen I have ever seen play. He was unorthodox and possessed a wonderful array of stokes, particularly an exquisite back foot drive that I can still see now in my mind's eye.

To many Somerset fans the names of Trescothick and Lathwell will forever be linked. They opened the batting together when Trescothick (four years younger) was beginning his career and between them held the promise of an exciting future for fans who had endured another lean period since the departures of Ian Botham and Viv Richards in 1986. As a Somerset fan and member I had followed their careers very closely although I had seen a lot more of Lathwell and only seen them together on the odd occasion.

I mentioned this to Trescothick and the "genius" of Lathwell in that he played shots that nobody else did. For just a second his eyes lit up and he agreed, before we discussed the fact that Lathwell had fallen out of cricket, injured and apparently disinterested, a few years before.

Lathwell played two test matches for England (to Trescothick's 76) and later reports suggested that he found the whole experience stressful and uncomfortable and was far happier in the more familiar environment of the Somerset dressing room.

And four years on from our meeting, that is where Trescothick found himself. Just a few months after Trescothick played a major role in guiding England to a first Ashes success in two decades, he was struck down by chronic depression that left him unable to tour with England and at times, according to his autobiography, Coming Back to Me, threatened his life. At the beginning of the 2008 season after several attempts to overcome the travel anxiety that often seemed to trigger the severe episodes he retired from international cricket and resumed his career as a full-time Somerset player. 

In September, Trescothick's  autobiography was published and in December it won the Whitbread Sports Book of the Year and last week became the first sports biography I have read in about five years - having stopped when I realised just how dull and dismal most of these memoirs are.

Despite the fact that I have always had a huge soft spot for Trescothick, as a Somerset boy, I couldn't quite bring myself even to read his book. It seemed highly unlikely that the player I interviewed could produce 300 pages worthy of £16.99.

So my resistance lasted our months, and what I found was a Marcus Trescothick who still had relatively little of interest to say about cricket, but who has written one of the most honest and open biographies I can recall reading. Trescothick strips himself completely bare and gives a blow-by-distressing-blow account of the disintegration of his mental well-being and at the same time probably does as much to expose the perils of the world inhabited by top class sportspeople.

The popular view of this world is one in which the toughest problems facing its inhabitants are choosing between Krug and Cristal or Ferrari and Maserati.

But Trescothick offers an entirely different view. In the cricket world at least it is one where either injury or a loss of form can whip your career out from under your feet in an instant. Where month after month is spent on the road living in hotel rooms and out of suitcases. Where every move you make, every shot you take is viewed through the microscopic lens of the reporter and the telephoto lens of the photographer.

What is striking about Trescothick is that his love of cricket, of scoring runs allowed  him to overcome all anxieties and misgivings. In one chapter, in which he makes his England debut, almost every line is completed by the phrase: "Isn't his great?" Going into the dressing room for the first time? Great. Walking out to bat in England colours on debut? Great. Biffing your first boundary? Great. All of it great. The one cricketing insight Trescothick really communicates is his pure and unalloyed joy at playing cricket, and playing for England is the realisation of a dream he had held since he could stand.

But even this great cricketing enthusiast is worn down by the relentless hamster-on-a-treadmill world of international cricket. And even before his breakdown he is becoming disillusioned with the game, his love of it no longer unable to overcome homsickness, missing his wife and child and the tiredness and boredom of long-term travel.

And then his illness strikes with devastating consequences and the dream is over.

I very much doubt that Coming Back to Me was the best sports book of 2008, but I doubt there was another written that was quite so compelling. Trescothick comes across as a decent man struggling to deal with a problem far more challenging than any fast bowler, and confronting that challenge with an honesty that is disarming.

Ten days after I interviewed him at Lord's Trescothick went to Edgbaston and scored a century in each innings for England. I sat in the press box, thrilled to be there to see it and suppressing the excited fan in me so that I could retain the appearance of professionalism.

I miss him in and England shirt, and for me a lot of the pleasure and interest of watching England cricket retired with him. England miss him even more and are no nearer to finding a long term replacement than they were 30 months ago when he last played.

But I am delighted he has found his peace and I look forward to a 2009 full of runs for Somerset. And in my mind's eye, on a cold Janaury day I imagine a hot day in Taunton in an altogether simpler time, with St James's church in the background, and Mark Lathwell and Marcus Trescothick in the middle, the former bashing the ball of the back foot through cover and Trescothick slog sweeping to deep mid wicket. Happy days.

La Dolce Vita according to Donna Leon; Audio shorts; Russell Brand

"Because they were in a hurry, they decided not to have pasta and settled for a single dish of shrimp with vegetables and coriander. They shared a bottle of Gottardi pinot noir, turned down dessert, and finished with coffee."

Who could this be other than Guido Brunetti and Lorenzo Vianello? In the midst of what might be a murder investigation, and "in a hurry", there is time for lunch. Not a full lunch, granted, no pasta after all, but a decent-sounding lunch with a bottle of wine. How happy we would all be to make do with the Italian equivalent of the sandwich at the desk!

This is part of what makes Donna Leon's books so special: the very Mediterranean pace of life, and the appreciation of the finer things in life, and the well-adjusted likable detectives.

The Child of his Dreams, the new Brunetti novel, is wonderful. Review soon.

Audio shorts

Last week I praised the joys of the audio book, and this week, with quite a bit of travel behind me, went through a couple more.

Generally speaking I like my audio books unabridged, even if this means that the listening to them can go on for quite a while as many books run to more than a dozen hours and it's not always easy to find that kind of time.

So thanks to Chloe Healy at Macmillan for introducing me to the pleasures of the audio short: books abridged down to two or three hours. This week I tried H is for Homicide, by Sue Grafton, and Minette Walters' The Breaker.

The beauty of these is that they can be digested in a couple of car sittings, a round trip to Heathrow, for example, and give the listener a full story in a condensed time.

Sue Grafton's novels, generally pretty short anyway, are perfect for this sort of treatment. I got my first introduction to the Alphabet series via audio, an unabridged reading of J is for Judgment by Lorelei King. And so her's is the voice I hear in my head when I read Kinsey Milhone, and it was nice to hear her again reading H, with her sing-song upbeat voice that capture's Kinsey's sassy charm. H is one of the more distinctive books - Kinsey goes undercover in pursuit of insurance scammers - and it didn't seem to suffer much in the truncation.

Minette Walters I have never read for some reason, although I know plenty of people who have and who like her books, and so the CD book, read beautifully by Kevin Whateley of Lewis fame. It's a fascinating story, sordid sex and jjealous amongst the Dorset sailing set, which begins when the naked body of a young mother is washed up on an isoldated shoreline.

Walters' characters are rounded, real people, including her policemen and in particular the salt-of-the-earth PC Nick Ingram. And it is somewhat shocking in its exposure of what goes on ín seemingly normal households behind closed doors. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will look out for more of her work.

Russell Brand brightens up the sporting morning

There is so much sports' writing out there in the newspapers each morning that there is very little scope for originality any more. That is why I paricularly enjoy Russell Brand's idiosyncratic view of the sporting life each Saturday morning in the Guardian. He is surprisingly insightful, utterly original and always funny. But this morning, during an exposition on how football managers' lives are so difficult and the circumstance impacting their job security to fickle he surpassed himself.

Writing about how self-styled special one Jose Mourinho made Chelsea "palatable", even to West Ham fans like Brand, he came up with the following analogy:

"Figuratively the scenario is reminiscent of a girl I once dated who had an atrocious personality (cruel, racist, joyless) but a really nice arse. She was like her own arse's irritating best mate - I had to tolerate her to get to the arse. The arse in its spellbinding beauty made her many flaws tolerable - she later revealed she'd only gone out with me because she liked my cat so don't feel too sorry for her."

Strange but brilliant.

REVIEW: Playing for Pizza by John Grisham

One of the by-products of the greatness of John Grisham as a writer is that you can often speed through his tales without time to reflect on what a great writer he really is.

I think I've read the entire Grisham fictional oeuvre now from A Time to Kill through The Firm and  The Brethren and on to the latest, Playing for Pizza. I even read (and really enjoyed) Skipping Christmas. Some are better than others, obviously, but they are uniformly good.

Grisham writes so beautifully, so simply, with such touch, control and command of language that he allows aspirant thriller writers to be fooled into believing that this writing malarkey is easy. Anyone can do it. The legal thrillers, in particular, are effortless reads:  fantastic, sophisticated plots crammed full of believable, engaging characters; corkscrews of twists and turns; crackling dialogue and brooding atmosphere; and often they can be clever, thought-provoking morality plays to boot, full of simple, but often crushing observations on the nature of officialdom (and human nature), whether it be corrupt or virtuous, cowardly or valiant.

And more often than not, I simply don't notice. So good and pacy are the stories they kidnap you for the duration of the read and the rest of it slides by, assumed as a given, taken on trust.

And so it requires a step back to notice the brilliance of all this. For me that moment arrives when Grisham glides off piste. Most recently this occurred with The Innocent Man, the extraordinary true story of a desperately depressing miscarriage of justice.

And again this week with Playing for Pizza, a thoroughly charming tale of a washed-up American football player who is cast off the by the NFL after the 11 most pathetic minutes ever played by any quarterback anywhere and finds himself playing for a small stipend and a tiny Fiat for the might Parma Panthers in Italy.

Grisham has football previous. His terrific 2003 novel Bleachers found a group of former high school players reunited following the death of their legendary coach, and playing out the soundtracks of their youth while agonising over the missteps that followed.

Like Bleachers, Playing for Pizza is a story of broken dreams, but only to a limited extent. It is more a voyage of discovery, of new dreams and new lives.

Rick Dockery, the quarterback in question, is hounded out of Cleveland after his heroically inept final 11 minutes in the NFL - as a third string QB - costs the Browns their best ever chance of a first Superbowl. His beleaguered agent is laughed off the phone by alternative employers until a chance presents itself for Rick to become the new QB of the Parma Panthers.

Fleeing a mooted paternity suit from a Browns cheerleader, Rick reluctantly takes flight for Parma, where he is instantly welcomed as the messiah by his new team of enthusiastic amateurs; the real NFL QB who can take them to the promised land of a first Italian Superbowl.

Rick cautiously fumbles his way into La Dolce Vita. First through food, and the extraordinary hospitality of his hosts. He then has his head turned by the considerable charms of Italian womanhood, and ultimately even by opera.

This tale of the American abroad is beautifully handled by Grisham, whose admiration for Italians, their culture and their way of life shines through every page. For those who like their football, there is plenty of it, also lovingly described. For those who don't care for the pigskin, it really doesn't matter, there's too much life and laughter in this book to worry about the odd page turned over to quick slants, third downs and field goals.

And right there in the middle are Grisham's startling and deceptively simple observations on human nature.

It's a little gem, bursting with beauty, optimism and sunshine, that rattles along to a dramatic conclusion. I commend it to all.

REVIEW: Never Give Up by Tedy Bruschi

There are few things in life as terrifying as being confronted by your own mortality. But it's something that eventually comes to all of us, at varying stages, and how we deal with it impacts enormously on those around us and to some extent comes to define us.

Deaths or serious illness to athletes always seems more shocking, almost wrong somehow, compared to those visited on the rest of us. I guess this is because we see them in their pomp; they look invincible, immortal.

Tedy Bruschi certainly looked in pretty rude health in early February 2005 as he helped lead the New England Patriots to their third Superbowl in four years with victory over the Philadelphia Eagles in Jacksonville. Bruschi had an interception that night, and was instrumental in a fearsome Patriots run defence that held the Eagles under 50 yards on the game.

Before the game, Bruschi cavorted with his two young sons on the field. Here, it seemed, was a man with everything.

A week later Bruschi was in Honolulul, for his first Pro Bowl, better-than-late recognition from his peers of an outstanding player.

Less than a week later, Bruschi was in Massachusetts General hospital with blurred vision, screaming headaches and a partial paralysis of his left side. As he tells the story in Never Give Up: My Stroke, My Recovery and My Return to the NFL, Bruschi was bewildered, scared and beginning a process of re-evaluating everything he understood about his life.

What follows is some background to Bruschi's life - growing up in the Bay Area , college at Arizona - and then a detailed account of his diagnosis, treatment and  subsequent recovery.

To work well, a book of this must avoid too much sentimentality, which it largely does, and be honest, which it unquestionably is. Co-authored by Michael Holley, who has Patriots previous having authored the fly-on-the-wall diary Patriot Reign, Bruschi finds a clear and distinctive voice in Never Give Up, and on that goes a long way to explaining how he came to emerge as a leader of the Patriots.

He talks candidly about his hell-raising in college, painting a picture of a pretty unlikable sort. He is open about the strain that his ultimate desire to return to a football career put on his marriage, taking the reader into the dark corners of a relationship that are rarely visible to the outsider. Nor does he spare the Patriots organisation, which is still his employer, criticism when he believes it is merited (an admittedly rare event). Bruschi and his family also suffered at the hands of the over-bearing, moralising sports media as he returned to his day job, and he describes the anguish that caused him.

And therein lies the value of this book to many.  Bruschi says he wrote it to help raise awareness of strokes and to help educate people about them. The problems he encountered with his wife, his employer and his friends are likely to be very similar to those of other stroke sufferers. And Bruschi's candour, example and ultimate recovery hopefully will help others. There is a final, highly moving chapter in which he details the correspondence of others in reaction to his illness. People clearly have already been movedand inspired by his response to stroke (he is now about to start his third season since suffering his illness) and doubtless will be by the book.

For all every person who read this book because of strokes, there will likely be three others who do so for the Patriots and football. And while this book is not the fascinating expose that Patriot Reign or Education of a Coach  was, there are some real gems in here.

The Patriots organisation, and in particular its owner, is portrayed as supportive, caring and decent. The coach, Bill Belichick is, as ever, one step ahead of everyone else.

But above those there is an intimate depiction here of Tom Brady as a very special individual. This is a story that has been told before - by Charles Pierce, by many in the media, by Charlie Weis after his illness. But the Brady here is something else, a man with a real gift for communciationa and charm that could elevate him as high in the political arena as his physical gifts have on the football field. I don't want to over-play this as Brady is really a bit part character in Bruschi's story - aside from a very thoughtful and moving foreward - but it really is a fascinating vignette.

And of course there is Bruschi. Honest, brave, inspiring, focused, stubborn and determined. A good man to know, one suspects. A valuable friend, teammate and family member. I am making my first trip to Foxborough in 18 years this autumn, and have been planning to buy my five-year old son a replica shirt. There is no longer any doubt what name and number the shirt will carry.

This is a thoughtful, insightful and stirring book. Anyone with an interest in either stroke, football or stories of  courage against adversity will find a great deal in it.

   

Holiday reading: summer list

So, I've just broken up for the summer, and have two glorious weeks off. In days of yore this would have meant a book a day for two weeks, but those days are behind me until the children move out (approximately 17 years and counting).

So instead if I can get through five or six, I'll be a happy and well-read man, although that includes the ones I'm reading currently.

So here it is, the summer list:

The Unquiet by John Connolly

Boy, does Charlie Parker make life tough for  himself. Connolly's Maine PI (is Maine the creepiest state or what?) accepts a job from a woman who is being stalked by a man searching her father, a former child psychologist who worked extensively and controversially in the field of child abuse. Her father has disappeared in difficult circumstances and the man seeking him turns out to be Merrick, a cold-blooded killer whose own daughter was abused and susbequently disappeared at roughly the same time.

Connolly is the king of spooky. His books are part crime, part horror, utterly brilliant and among the best-crafted on the market. Typically, the supernatural is prevalent throughout. This is dark, compelling and truly excellent, and I'm about half way through right now and loving it.

The Killing Jar by Nicola Monaghan

Another one I'm already well into. Monaghan, let previous posts show, was showcased at the Harrogate crime writing festival as the best of the new blood on the crime scene. Her book, which tells the story of a young girl born into an addicts life on a Nottingham sink estate, isn't really crime, but who the hell cares?  It is moving, convincing and utterly superb.

Never Give Up: My Stroke, My Recovery and My Return to the NFL by Tedy Bruschi

If there is a more compelling story in professional sport than that of Tedy Bruschi then I have yet to hear it. Bruschi is a veteran linebacker for the New England Patriots, and was perhaps the beating heart of the team that won three Superbowls in four years between 2002 and 2005. Shortly after the last of them Bruschi, a man who perhaps did not have the most natural talents but had made the most of them with a singular determination and a rare intelligence in the most physically demanding of sports, suffered a stroke shortly after the last of those three Championships.

Surely that was the end of his career? Nobody could come back from a stroke and play in the tough world of the NFL? Bruschi could. Two and a half years on he is preparing for another season with the Patriots, and hopefully a fourth Superbowl ring. His book is published early in August and my copy is already ordered and should be here soon enough.

The Dirt-Brown Derby by Ed Lynskey

I love American crime fiction, and am always looking for new writers whose stories take place in new locations that I haven't visited in crime before. So I was pleased to hear from Ed Lynskey, who wrote and I asked if I'd takae a look at his second novel, The Blue Cheer. And I will, but not before I have satisfied my anal retentive nature by reading his first Frank  JOhnson PI novel, the Dirt-Brown Derby, which is set in rural  Middleburg Virginia,  not far from the famous Manassas Civil War battlefield.

Ironman update: Julian Crabtree starts Arch to Arc challenge

Going to France on your holidays this year? How are you getting there?  Boat, train, EasyJet?

Julian Crabtree set off for France this afternoon from  Marble  Arch.  But there's no at-seat service for him. He's running to Dover (87 miles), swimming the Channel (22 miles) and then cycling to the Arc de Triomphe (180 miles). Oh, and he's going to try and break the world record for this super-triathlon, which currently stands at 81 hours and five minutes.

At a little after 1.45pm Julian, who was understandably nervous and feeling every last tweak and pain, set off running down Park Lane with Edgar Ette, the existing record holder, who was going to help him find his way out of London. With his brother Justin, sister Sue and girlfriend Gisele in support, Julian should reach Dover sometime on Tuesday morning and will then get a break as he waits for his tide and the start of his swim.

It's an incredible achievement for Julian even to make it to the starting line, after illness and injury put paid to attempts to do this in the last two years.

If you sponsor just one charity event this, make it this one. Julian is taking donations for the Wooden Spoon society and the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund.

There will be live updates here, and I'll post on his progress as and when I get it.

ALLEZ JULIAN!!!

Midfield maestro

It's not every day you get to strut your stuff at a Premiership ground, so it was a pleasure recently to get a chance to play in a charity football tournament at Arsenal's Emirates stadium.

The standard of the football left a huge amount to be desired - a lot of overweight middle aged men huffing and puffing away - but there was one little moment of magic captured on video quite by chance and enshrined on YouTube forever, that shows an almost perfectly-constructed goal:  pressing from the back leading to a mistake by the opposition, a lay off to a supporting midfielder (whose footballing hero is pictured above), an exquisite one touch pass to the winger, a  jinking move to beat the defender at the byline, a neat cross to beat the  goalkeeper and a striker showing good hustle to get on the end of the cross.

It could have been Toure, Ljungberg, Fabregas and Henry.

But it wasn't of course. Your correspondent is the lithe, athletic, er, blue-shirted number three. You might have expected that I'd have had Mr Wenger on the phone by now, making an offer but sadly, radio silence has prevailed. It's probably just Wenger's bias against players with an English passport and nothing whatever to do with my poor physical condition, diet, weight etc.

I just have two things to say about the video. Firstly, everything happens slower on tv than in real life. Secondly, Mike Gatting was absolutely right in his views about the small screen: there is no doubt that it makes people look a lot shorter and fatter than they actually are.    

London's Iron Man: Julian Crabtree

The London Evening Standard today ran a piece examining the motivation and training regime of the man they dub: London's fittest man.

That man is a guy called Julian Crabtree, a friend of mine (and occasional commentator on this blog), and this summer he is going to try and do something truly remarkable: break the record for the fastest ever completion of the Arch to Arc Challenge.

Sadly the Standard hasn't yet posted its story on its website, so for those of you who don't know what the A2A challenge is, I'll explain.  It's an endurance Triathlon in which the participant (of whom, for obvious reasons, there are very few) run the 87 miles from London's Marble Arch to Dover, swims the 22 miles of the English channel and then cycles the 180 miles to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. And if he makes it, particuarly in the record time of  81 hours and five minutes, then I'd say that was a triumph in any language. Julian's website  explains something of the history of the Challenge and his rationale (if that's the right word) for it.

Besides being a madman (obviously), Julian is one of the  most decent people you could hope to meet, and I obviously wish him well. I would also urge all of you to visit the site www.juliancrabtree.com and donate to either of the two excellent charities he is running, swimming and cycling for: The Wooden Spoon Society and The Nelson Mandela Children's Fund.

The sad death of Bob Woolmer; Jane Austen on ITV - Billie Piper all wrong; Introducing Marcus Barr

March 19

Professional sport - it's no longer a game

I sat up until late on Saturday night, watching one of the most extraordinary results in world cricket unfold as the unheralded amateurs of Ireland beat the renowned professionals of Pakistan in a thrilling tense World Cup match.

As Ireland won, and I celebrated, Sky Sport's coverage dwelt on the figure of Bob Woolmer, Pakistan's coach, sitting on his team's balcony shaking his head. And at the time I thought to myself, "this guy does not deserve this". His players got all they had coming; they really didn't look like their hearts were in it, and played with exactly the lack of fire and discipline that Woolmer had worked so hard to restore to their game.

It is pointless speculating at this stage about what killed Bob Woolmer, who was found unconscious in his hotel room in the morning following the game and died shortly after in hospital in Jamaica.

But what his sad death illustrates is just how much pressure there is in modern professional sport. Week after week we see managers, coaches and players pushed to emotional and stressful extremes. So much rides on so little. In Pakistan, the defeat to Ireland would likely have led to a huge national outcry, probably even the team returning home in disgrace. Every weekend we see other matches where careers and/or millions of dollars depend on the outcome of one moment or decision.

It's an increasingly tough world, and I suspect we will see more and more victims of the pressure who are unable to deal with the high stakes and expectations.

ITV's Jane Austen season

The Sunday night crime slot has given way to something altogether more gentle, a three film Jane Austen season, which started last night with Mansfield Park.

Now personally, I prefer the crime,  but a change is as good as a holiday, and Mansfield Park was a pretty good alternative. The production values were high, the settings beautiful, the screenplay strong and the acting largely excellent. I particularly liked Joseph Beattie as a suitably rakish Henry Crawford and Jemma Redgrave as Mrs Bertram.

But what about Billie Piper? Now although I don't find her particularly attractive, usually I have a lot of time for Billie now she's given up her teenage popdom and I liked her a lot in  The Ruby in the Smoke, but I'm afraid this just didn't feel right.  Not Austenesque enough, even if she was playing the outsider.

Nonetheless, quality drama is always very welcome, and ITV has upped its game considerably this year.

Next week, Northanger Abbey.

Haggard Hawk, coming tomorrow

It could be that crime has disappeared from Sunday nights because one of its leading writers is taking a busman's holiday and writing novels instead of scripts.

Marcus Barr, whose credits include Midsomer Murders under a different name, sees his first novel Haggard Hawk released in paperback tomorrow. The novel features retired detective Nathan Hawk, now living in what the book describes as "village England" (a place familiar to Midsomer Murders viewers I suspect, and those of Lovejoy, which Mr Barr has also worked on) and investigating a brutal murder that takes place on the road outside his village.

The first 30 pages are promising indeed. Good characters, very fluid writing and a rigorous pace.

Review coming soon.  There are copies available in a competition on the excellent Eurocrime.

REVIEW: Moving the Chains - Tom Brady and the Pursuit of Everything by Charles P Pierce

November 23, 16.00pm

First, a confession: there's no mystery or crime here, in the biography of an American football player, other than the fact that all 32 NFL teams somehow passed up on the opportunity to draft Tom Brady, before the New England Patriots made him the 199th pick of the 2000 draft.

But, this is what I've been reading, and so this is what I'm going to write about.

For those fleeing these pages immediately when confronted with sport and biography - two words that, by and large, mix about as well as whisky and double cream - let me say this: Moving the Chains is no ordinary sporting biography.

At the very least, it is certainly the first I have ever come across that examines the impact of the Vatican II council on the subject. But the hallmark of Charles P Pierce's excellent book is attention detail and deep research.

Pierce, of course, does have a fascinating leading man. Tom Brady emerged from the dregs of the 2000 draft to become the most successful quarterback in the game, winning three Superbowls in four years and in the process becoming the leading icon in a sport that cherishes them more than any other. And he did it with poise and grace and a sang-froid that appeared almost inhuman, leading the Patriots through some extraordinary fourth quarter drives and comebacks that called to mind the halcyon days of the hitherto incomparable Joe Montana.

In the wake of his extraordinary success, Brady: went to Congress as the guest of the President; he acquired a filmstar girlfriend; he hosted Saturday Night Live and did a skit in his underwear; he became the man who seemed to have..., well, everything, just like the book says.

But somehow, Brady handled all the pressure, attention and adulation with an extraordinary humility - a quality not evident in every NFL superstar. (See Moss R, Owens T, Johnson C etc etc)

And because of that Brady retained the affection  and respect of his teammates, fans, coaches and just about everyone else with an interest in him and the game.

Pierce's triumph - and this really is a superb biography - is that he manages to convey a strong sense of how this happened, about what it is in Tom Brady's DNA that makes him so successful and so likeable.

To achieve this, Pierce could have wandered into the Patriots locker room and had half a dozen team-mates tell him: "Tom's the man, one of the guys etc". Many a lazy sporting biography has been constructed on such a weak foundation. But Pierce speaks to Brady's family and takes the trouble to find out about his parents' upbringing, and their values (it is here that Vatican II comes into play) and about growing up in a house full of sisters. He speaks to friends, teachers, coaches, opposing coaches, scouts and professors, an impressive array of people whose views help him build a fascinating mosaic of the player.

Pierce traces Brady's journey into football during High School and charts the budding quarterback's obsession with the mechanics of throwing - an early sighting of the Stakhanovite perfectionist. There is also an interesting passage exploring Brady's decision to go to college in Michigan, where he would have to fight tooth and nail for playing time his entire career, when an easier option was available just down the road at Cal.

Pierce, who approached a midly reluctant Brady about the book before the 2005 season, was perhaps lucky that the season he chose to follow his subject was a challenging one for the Patriots, rather than the regal procession of the two previous seasons as adversity is a far more revealing of character than triumph. A biography compiled in either of the Superbowl seasons could too easily have fallen into hagiography, a familiar trap. But perhaps Pierce would have been too clever for that anyway.

What emerges is a complex picture of a driven man not satisfied to rest on his considerable laurels, and one who takes seriously his responsibilities - to his teammates, to his family, to his employers amongst others. A man who wears his success well, but is uncomfortable in, but accepting of, the spotlight. And as much as anything else Brady is a sporting role model, a man who works hard to be the best player he can, and the best teammate he can. Imagine what Terrell Owens or Randy Moss could have achieved with such an attitude.

Something esle emerges in the book also: Pierce is a talented, charming writer with a subtle wit and a strong grasp of the fact that there are many more things in life more important than football, but that the game and its icons have their place. Pierce also avoids falling into the dewey-eyed romanticism that blights so much American sports writing (but which is admittedly rare  in the home-team-baiting world of the Boston media).

Although Moving the Chains will doubtless primarily appeal to Patriots fans, it is broad enough in its scope that it should find an audience beyond New England. It is as much a book about the cult of sporting celebrity and the culture of the modern NFL than it is about one man, and for that reason it works brilliantly.