Lee Gruenfeld Books In Order

Scratch

Golf fiction’s most beloved hustler, The Green’s Eddie Caminetti, returns from self imposed exile to turn the PGA Tour and the golf equipment industry on its ear. When Eddie’s former caddie, ‘Fat Albert’ Auberlain a cross between Tiger Woods and John Daly, loses his PGA Tour card, his endorseme*nts, and his composure after posting a twelve on a par three at the Fruit of the Loom Waste Management Open, Eddie finds the sad sack on his doorstep. Fat Albert, in debt up to his eyeballs and with several needy relatives to feed, had barely been eking out a living on Tour as it was, and the pressure was threatening to make him implode altogether. Eddie takes pity on his prot g but isn’t quite sure what he can do, when along comes nuclear physicist Norman Standish with the most revolutionary advance in golf equipment since the double niblick a golf ball they call Scratch. If Standish’s claims are true, Eddie could make the killing of his strange and wonderful life and just possibly change the game forever. With McAllister’s patented golf hustling hijinks, roller coaster plotting, and laugh out loud skewering of pro sports hypocrisy, Eddie’s die hard fans and golf fiction aficionados will laugh all the way to the putting green. As Eddie himself puts it in The Foursome, ‘Why do you think they call the devil Scratch?’

Barranca

Legendary curmudgeon and hustler extraordinaire Eddie Caminetti has taken on the Ryder Cup The Green, unrepentant sinners The Fourseome, and the entire golf equipment industry Scratch. But enough with the small stuff: In Barranaca, Eddie is called upon by the U.S. government to go after a South American economic terrorist threatening the only commodity capable of destabilizing the entire Western Hemisphere. Yes, Manuel Villa Lobos de Barranca is out to corner the market on coffee. When a grande medium cup of Starbucks hits $20, riots break out in cities and towns all over America, worker productivity plummets, and the very fabric of society begins unraveling. But there’s nothing the government can do about it because the scrupulously honest and upright de Barranca Standford, ’96 is running his revolution without firing a shot or breaking any laws, which makes him the most dangerous subversive since Gandhi. But he’s nuts about golf, positively fanatic about betting, and that’s where Eddie Caminetti comes in. Armed with only fourteen weapons of mass destruction the most you’re allowed to carry in your bag, he sets up a match against de Barranca on which hangs the very fate of Western civilization. In the hands of master storyteller Troon McAllister, impending doom has never been more fun.

All Fall Down

In the wake of a tragic passenger jet crash, the National Transportation Safety Board receives an extortion letter for five million dollars, and FBI agent Jack Webster learns of a ruthless adversary’s personal stakes. NYT. PW. LJ.

The Halls of Justice

A legal thriller about identical twin sisters who are raped by a man who escapes conviction on a technicality. But one of the sisters kills the rapist, though no one can tell which one, and the state prosecutor has the added burden of knowing that the killing was justified. Santa Monica Deputy District Attorney Sal Milano is prosecuting the most explosive and high profile case of his career. A small time thug with ties to the mob has been charged with raping twin sisters, one of them the stunning Diane Pierman, a celebrated attorney and Sal’s longtime court rival. The case is thrown out on a technicality, but a few days after the trial, one of the sisters hunts down and kills their assailant. Neither one will talk and both are charged with murder one. Now Sal is working the case of a lifetime, with the headlines and attention enough to satisfy even his ambitions. But everything depends on prosecuting and convicting two beautiful women who, in the eyes of the public, have righted a grievous wrong.

The Expert

Lee Gruenfeld is also the author of the national bestseller The Halls Of Justice Praise for The Expert: ‘An adroit performance, with plenty of double crosses mixed in with the cross examinations…
. The characters are deftly presented. Best of all, Gruenfeld keeps the many detailed discussions of encryption balanced with the personal motivations of his cast.’ New York Times Book Review ‘Lee Gruenfeld has elevated the art of writing the techno thriller to the point that readers should be issued oxygen masks…
the story rips along so rapidly you don’t realize you’re learning megabites about computer chip techonolgy…
as well as developing insights into human character.’ San Bernardino Sun ‘There’s a jungle of technical information awaiting the reader with this wonderfully complex thriller. Gruenfeld has written a comic opera of a novel with four main characters who pretend to be objective about each other when, in fact, they are linked by old grudges and attractions.’ Publishers Weekly

The Green

The Ryder Cup.A biennial tournament considered the premier event in the golfing world, pitting the twelve best players in the United States against the twelve best of Europe in a contest so pressure filled it can paralyze even the most battle scarred tour veterans. United States captain Alan Bellamy, with one precious slot unfilled and none of the remaining top tour players willing to sign on against a clearly superior European squad, makes a desperate decision in his attempt to preserve America’s golfing honor: he selects as his twelfth man one Eddie Caminetti, a low life, two bit hustler from a municipal course in South Florida. The most prestigious tournament in golf will never be the same. As the unforeseen consequences of Caminetti’s participation on the Ryder team unfold riotously, Troon McAllister takes us into the minds and souls of elite professional athletes and poses a question as old as golf itself: Why would God create a game even He can’t play?

The Foursome

Golf fiction’s finest hustler The Green’s Eddie Caminetti returns in a laugh out loud novel featuring a foursome of upwardly mobile golf fanatics who get their just rewards. Tired of hustling for something as ordinary as money, Eddie, in The Foursome, sets his sights slightly higher than other men’s pockets: he goes after their souls. He now presides over Swithen Bairn, an exquisite secret golf course that’s a kind of twisted Fantasy Island where the arrogant and pompous find their cherished dreams suddenly transformed into their worst nightmares. Enter The Foursome of the title, four enviably successful businessmen/golf junkies lured to Swithen Bairn by an irresistible offer: ‘The most memorable golf vacation you ever had or you don’t pay.’ It’s been said that you can learn more about people during one round of golf than you can living next door to them for six months, and in one round with Eddie Caminetti these four hapless sinners learn more about themselves than they could have in six years of analysis. By the end of their second match, the dizzying amount of money at stake will be the least of their worries, and ‘memorable’ won’t even begin to describe this bizarre vacation. Mixing equal parts of suspense, hilarity, and raw human drama, Troon McAllister deftly shows readers what can happen when money, friendship, ambition, and greed converge explosively in a single round of golf. As Eddie Caminetti himself puts it in The Foursome, ‘Why do you think they call the devil Scratch?’From the Hardcover edition.

The Kid Who Batted 1.000

The Des Moines Majestyks are deep in the cellar…
so deep that it seems nothing short of divine intervention could even get them up to the ground floor. They do have one star, Juan Tanamera ‘Bueno’ Aires, an ex basketball phenom who performs miracles at the plate and magic in the field. Unfortunately, team owner Holden Canfield, who’s struck it rich with an Internet start up, spent the entire team budget on acquiring ‘Bueno,’ leaving the rest of the roster painfully devoid of talent. Manager Zuke Johansen has just about given up hope when an unexpected thing happens: A scout introduces him to Marvin Kowalski. A straight A student, valedictorian of his high school class, and on his way to MIT, Marvin knows little about the rules of the game, and his pencil thin physique would get him laughed off a big league diamond. But Marvin has one brilliant skill. The ultimate ‘one tool’ player, he has such a good eye that he can tell what kind of pitch is coming almost before it leaves the pitcher’s hand. And even though he’s not much of a hitter, his reflexes and coordination are incredibly fast so fast, in fact, that nobody can strike him out, as Zuke Johansen quickly sees. Marvin may not be Babe Ruth, but he has found a way to exhaust and utterly enrage opposing pitchers, driving them to distraction before he takes his inevitable base. Faced with the prospect of leading his team to one of the worst season records since the game was played without gloves, Zuke is desperate enough to wonder if Marvin’s strange talent might just lift his Majestyks out of the cellar…
. The Kid Who Batted 1. 000 is one of those rare sports novels that will appeal to fervent fans as well as those still trying to figure out the infield fly rule. Generously sprinkling his story with some of the best loved one liners in the game, Troon McAllister delivers a darkly funny behind the scenes look at our national pastime, cementing his place as a major league humorist.

Best of Thrillers

4 Books on 8 Cassettes The Weatherman by Steve Thayer All Fall Down by Lee Gruenfeld The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy Nine Levels Down by William R. Dantz In this spellbinding collection of thrillers, TOPICS Entertainment takes you into the world of fear, intrigue, action, and suspense. This exciting collection will enter your heart and mind as you listen to four electrifying thrillers. This box set of eight cassettes is an outstanding value for the suspense fan. In your car, while jogging, or on an airplane, these audio books offer a unique experience, and allow today’s time pressed reader the opportunity to hear literature in a convenient and entertaining way. The Weatherman by Steve Thayer A sad*istic serial killer who snaps the necks of his young victims is terrorizing the Minneapolis, St. Paul metropolitan area. Against the backdrop of the turbulent Minnesota weather, a climate of fear escalates as Sky High News Pulitzer Prize winning news producer, Rick Beanblossom, a Vietnam vet who hides his napalm scarred face behind a mask, is busy investigating the Twin Cities gruesome murders. All Fall Down by Lee Gruenfeld Hours after a passenger jet nearly crashes, the National Safety Board receives a demand for five million dollars. The extortionist s threat: to electronically scramble the brains of any aircraft in the U.S. It s up to FBI agent Jack Webster and fighter pilot Bo Kincaid to stop this deadly game before an airplane firebombs from the sky. The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy Silently, beneath the chilly Atlantic waters, Russia s ultra secret missile submarine, Red October, is heading west. The Americans want her. The Russians want her back. With all out war only seconds away, the superpowers race across the ocean on the desperate mission of a lifetime. The most incredible chase in history is on! A phenomenal 1 New York Times bestseller and box office hit. Nine Levels Down by William R. Dantz Dr. Anna Kane has designed a computerized implant that monitors a psychopath s murderous rages. Subway killer John Chester Marlon is the principal subject of this experimental technology. But, Marlon escapes the maximum security hospital, dragging Anna into New York City s dark underbelly.

Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief

The extraordinarily captivating memoir of the remarkable jewel thief who robbed the rich and the famous while maintaining an outwardly conventional life an astonishing and completely true story, the like of which has never before been told…
or lived. Bill Mason is arguably the greatest jewel thief who ever lived. During a thirty year career he charmed his way into the inner circles of high society and stole more than $35 million worth of fabulous jewels from such celebrities as Robert Goulet, Armand Hammer, Phyllis Diller, Bob Hope, Truman Capote, Margaux Hemingway and Johnny Weissmuller he even hit the Mafia. Along the way he seduced a high profile Midwest socialite into leaving her prominent industrialist husband, nearly died after being shot during a robbery, tricked both Christie’s and Sotheby s into fencing stolen goods for him and was a fugitive for five years and the object of a nationwide manhunt. Yet despite the best efforts of law enforcement authorities from several states as well as the federal government, he spent less than three years total in prison. Shadowy, elusive and intensely private, Mason has been the subject of many magazine and newspaper features, but no journalist has ever come close to knowing the facts. Now, in his own words and with no holds barred, he reveals everything, and the real story is far more incredible than any of the reporters, detectives or FBI agents who pursued Mason ever imagined. Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief, expertly co written by bestselling author Lee Gruenfeld, is a unique true crime confessional. From the Hardcover edition.

Becoming Holyfield

History’s only four time world heavyweight boxing champion and one of America’s most admired and beloved athletes reveals the dramatic story of his rise from poverty to the very pinnacle of the toughest sport on earth.

Barely able to make it into the heavyweight division and almost always the smaller fighter in the ring, Holyfield spent his professional career proving the naysayers wrong. Along the way he provided some of the twentieth century’s most thrilling sports moments, not all of them on purpose. In Becoming Holyfield, he gives us the exciting inside story of defeating Mike Tyson, the self proclaimed ‘Baddest Man on Earth,’ and then getting a piece of his ear bitten off in the rematch. We learn how it felt to become the undisputed champion of the world by knocking out the man who knocked out Tyson, and we find out what it was really like to be in the middle of a title fight and see a motorized parachute fly right into the ring.

There is heartbreak to go along with triumph, beginning with Holyfield’s loss of an Olympic gold medal because of a highly controversial disqualification and continuing through his short lived retirement following a misdiagnosed heart condition. Along the way we’re treated to glimpses of such colorful figures as Don King and Howard Cosell and we come to understand the extra ordinary power of love in shaping a young boy’s life, and the love he tried to return. Holyfield made more money in the ring than any other fighter in history, and gave away millions to support the dreams of underprivileged kids looking for the same kinds of breaks that allowed him to become a champion.

Holyfield’s immense popularity cannot be overstated, and it cuts across all ethnicities and socioeconomic clas*ses. The top three highest grossing sporting events in Las Vegas history were all Holyfield fights, and his highly rated appearances on Dancing with the Stars helped to ensure that show’s success. Other fighters may have been bigger, stronger, or more flamboyant, but few could match Evander Holyfield’s poise, grace under pressure, or commitment to serve as an inspiration to others.