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Lunch » Tags » Books » Reviews » Toss: A Novel

Toss: A Novel

1 rating: 3.0

A book by Boomer Esiason

Combine one smart former quarterback (Boomer Esiason led the Cincinnati Bengals to the Super Bowl, among other gridiron triumphs) and one smart crime writer (Lowell Cauffiel'sMarkeris an equally impressive performance) and you come up with an exciting, … see full wiki

Tags: Books

Author: Boomer Esiason

Publisher: Onyx

1 review about Toss: A Novel

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Tossing the book at dirty ball

Feb 28, 2011

by TStocksl
posted in Cafe Libri: Reviewing Books & More

Exclusive to the Lunch Network

Rating:

The "Toss" in the title of this little-known novel by NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason doesn't refer to touchdown passes. Toss, also co-written by Lowell Cauffiel, provides a look at every sordid angle of the dirty side of the NFL: felons on the field, gamblers in the locker room, incompetents in the coach's office, and double-dealing mob murderers in the front office. In the ten-plus years since Esiason wrote this book we've seen all of this stuff on Sportscenter, but it seems a bit much to see it all on one team

Still, Toss reads fast and keeps your interest up. Rookie QB Derek Brody was a training camp holdout before joining the New York Stars, a bunch of perennial losers with all the vices we listed above. Confident to the point of cocky, but focused on football to the point of keeping himself too clean for corruption, it turns out that he too has a hidden past that the front office spies have uncovered to blackmail him into becoming part of the dysfunctional football family of the Stars.

But Brody has smarts, persistence, and help--his agent, an out-of-town lawyer, and his girlfriend, an out-of-work actress, who stumbles onto the evidence that draws Brody into the mystery and starts him on the path to unraveling the solution.

Believability may not be a strong suit of the novel, but it is interesting and fun, and the good guys win. How often does that happen in the NFL? Toss is a touchdown that is undeservedly overlooked..

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