Close Call

Kipness compellingly combines her background as a sports reporter with her love of crime fiction, and her latest Kate Green thriller is her best yet. Kate is a sports reporter with a recent Emmy win, and she’s asked to cover the U.S. Open and specifically to interview two tennis stars: Brynn, an arrogant but talented up-and-comer, and Lucy, a veteran facing her last event. Brynn does not trust Kate at all, while Lucy is nicer but also hesitant. As Kate continues her coverage, she begins to uncover details that seem straight out of a soap opera rather than the tennis circuit. When Lucy forfeits a match the day after Kate interviews her, the reporter knows that something happened to Lucy and then receives a photo of the bound and gagged player. Kate can’t help but investigate, an effort that will uncover secrets about Lucy and Brynn and reveal personal elements of Kate’s life. There are many suspects here and it is so much fun from the first page to the last. Kipness’s engaging novel is perfect for newcomers to and fans of the series and is a blend of Hank Phillippi Ryan’s work and the Myron Bolitar novels by Harlan Coben. With a recently announced TV deal with Universal Television, picking this up should not be a close call.