Two in the Field
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
Baseball-loving time traveler Sam Fowler returns for another heart-pounding through America’s past in this sequel to the best-selling If I Never Get Back
The year is 1875. Gripped by an economic depression, America is a darker place. Once again, time traveler Sam Fowler falls in with ballplayers, but then spins off on his own seeking the whereabouts of Caitlin, the woman he loves. His knight-like, hazardous quest forces him to ride the rails with tramps, deal with starving miners and the desperate Molly Maguires, work in a Saratoga casino, venture into the Nebraska prairies—and even encounter author Mark Twain. In the end, Sam will have to head into the Black Hills accompanied by Cait, a former slave, and a Sioux guide to face the ultimate reckoning of his life.
Like its predecessor, Two in the Field combines authentic research (including accurate details of early baseball), a narrative filled with twists and turns, and memorable characters in a white-knuckle ride through a dramatic period of American history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Brock's sequel to If I Never Get Back promises the quaint historical charm that distinguished its predecessor, but some erratic plotting and a decision to virtually eliminate the baseball motif hurts the follow-up effort. The novel begins with time-traveling protagonist Samuel Fowler stuck in a San Francisco mental hospital after an extended flashback to Cincinnati in 1869, where he was a member of the first professional baseball team, the Red Stockings. Fowler remains haunted by his ill-fated affair with Caitlin O'Neill, and when his doctor challenges him to verify her existence, he sets off again for Cincinnati, where an auto accident sends him hurtling back to the 19th century. A visit to Samuel Clemens helps Fowler track down Caitlin in a Nebraska settlement, and Fowler takes up a quest to save the settlement from a thuggish, corrupt senator whose land scams threaten to destroy it. The early scenes in which Fowler goes back in time are deftly handled, as are Fowler's attempts to rekindle his romance with O'Neill. But his battles with the senator and his brutish cohorts seem far-fetched and unfocused, especially when the villains kidnap Caitlin's son and Fowler attempts a ludicrous rescue based on advice from George Custer. With this uneven plot, Brock's competent but somewhat diluted sequel can't match its inspired forerunner.
