COVER-UP

As 14-year-old Steve heads to Indianapolis to cover the Super Bowl with fellow reporter Susan Carol Anderson, Bill Thomas tells his son, “Just promise me you won’t get into any trouble this week.” But when they get to Indianapolis, they uncover a plot to cover up drug tests failed by the offensive line of the California Dreams, and the junior Woodward and Bernstein face a nervous quarterback, a drunken letch, an outraged owner of the Dreams and hired thugs trying to get the reporters to back off. The third of Feinstein’s sports mysteries, after Last Shot (2005) and Vanishing Act (2006), this has become an enjoyable formula. The pace is brisk, readers get to rub shoulders with sports celebrities, there’s more than a hint of romance between Steve and Susan Carol and the story ends with a moral: “The truth will bring the bad guys down.” Sure to be a hit with sports fans, who will look forward to future installments hinted at on the final page: a scandal at the Olympics? The World Series? (Fiction. 10-14)