Off My Rocker:

Recommendations from a Book Nut

Golf Mysteries
(June 2006)

In 1977 Paul Gallico wrote the following in the New York Times: "If there is any larceny in a man, golf will bring it out." Apparently it can bring out the urge to murder as well. Below are some mysteries set in and around the golf course.

HOLE IN ONE, by Catherine Aird

Despite his wife urging him to take up golf and join the movers and shakers at the local country club, DCI Christopher Dennis Sloan (known fondly to his colleagues as "Seedy") would rather tend his roses in his spare time.

However duty calls when a body is found buried in a bunker at the Berebury Golf Course (where, incidentally, Sloan’s trying boss is a member) and Sloan must investigate amidst obstruction from the moneyed old boy network, greed, the need to keep up appearances, and more golf-lore than he wants to know.

MURDER IN THE ROUGH, by J.S. Borthwick

Borthwick’s mysteries can be described as cozy. Their pace is slow and leisurely and the reader has plenty of time to get to know and appreciate the characters, particularly the ongoing ones of Professor of English, Sarah Deane and her S.O., Dr. Alex McKenzie.

In this outing, Alex’s parents have retired to a carefully designed "leisure" community that comes complete with its own golf course. Sarah’s father-in-law isn’t convinced this is a good idea since the new house has too many window, too much light and he feels like a "bug under a microscope."

Then bodies begin to turn up on that lovely new golf course. The reader has no particular difficulty in figuring out "whodunit." The fun here lies in the journey, the scenery, and the inhabitants.

SNAP HOOK, by John R. Corrigan

Jack Austin plays golf well enough to participate in PGA Tours, but putting is his weakness and he sure hasn’t won recently. Nonetheless he is asked by the PGA charities director to participate in a series of golf clinics in Russia. Things begin to go wrong for Jack when he agrees to employ a caddy who has no experience because, like Jack, the kid has dyslexia. Matters go from bad to worse when the charities director’s child is kidnapped by the Russian Mafia and Jack feels obligated to go after her.

Lots of golf lore for the uninitiated.

Other golf fiction for your reading pleasure: 

• Final Round, by William Bernhardt
• Member-Guest, by Clint McCown
• The Green, by Troon Mcallister
• Law And Ardor : An Andrew Broom Mystery, by Ralph McInerny