DEAD TO RIGHTS

When college softballer Joanna Deering collapses and dies after her team loses a national championship game to underdog Burleigh College, College and University Athletic Association (CUAA) enforcer Regina Lichtmann's suspicions fasten on hard- hearted Burleigh coach Pierce Nolan. Getting permission from Dan Mueller, her blond but sensitive CUAA boss, to go after Nolan, Reggie arranges an interview with Nolan that will give her access to all the coach's dirty linen. And what dirty linen it is! As a student at Hollyrood College, Nolan held up her benefactress, Hollyrood alumna Marilyn Streeter, for money; in her first job as a volleyball coach, she sabotaged a team bus; and currently her father and brother are leading lights of the ultraconservative American Dream Society. As Reggie crisscrosses the country combining her nominal job duties with her investigations, about the only question left is what Nolan hasn't done to get as far as she has. Reggie's barnstorming, in fact, doesn't make for very memorable scenes or characters—a shame, since this first mystery offers both an original background and a genuinely refreshing alternative to whodunit.