Be the One - Softcover

April Smith's first novel, North of Montana, garnered good reviews and marked her as a writer worth watching. In her second thriller, Be the One, she amply fulfills that promise. Cassidy Sanderson is a woman in a man's world: the only female scout in major-league baseball, Cassidy's not only a former star with a women's professional team but also the daughter of a legendary player and the sister of a promising pitcher who died too young. Baseball isn't just in Cassidy's blood, it's her whole life, and even the daily effort of constantly having to prove herself to her bosses in the L.A. Dodgers head office can't wear out her passion for the game.

She's got a great double play going when she goes to the Dominican Republic and finds both a promising young player, Alberto Cruz, and a powerful, sexy American financier, Joe Galinis, who picks her up when the car carrying her and Cruz breaks down. But once she gets Alberto to training camp, the trouble that's followed her all the way from the Caribbean explodes in blackmail, extortion, and violence, with a mysterious vodou twist:

The thing appears to be a Barbancourt rum bottle, you can see the lettering underneath the red cloth in which it has been tightly wrapped. Lashed to the neck with hundreds of turns of black thread are two pairs of scissors, open wide. Dangling off the bottom on multicolored strings is a bizarre fringe of razor blades that flash like silver teeth.

Her partner says, "What is it? Some kind of punk thing?"

"Gang thing?"

Cassidy holds it very carefully. It spooks her in a deeply primitive way. Unlike the whimsical gourd with the belly-button mirror on her mantel, this bizarre construction is definitely broadcasting on an evil wavelength: the shape of the bottle like a human body.

Smith's characters are sharply drawn, and she's firmly in command of her milieu: the day-to-day life of a baseball scout is brilliantly explicated, the pacing is expert, and the back-stories are well told in flashback. Cassidy is a fascinating woman--hard-working, hard-drinking, and wholly human and vulnerable. Even if you're not a baseball fan, you'll root for her to win. --Jane Adams

"No one can think about baseball all the time. So when you take time off from that this summer, savor this fine, complex, fast-paced novel about a hard-living female scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers, a talented Dominican prospect, and lots of skullduggery."
--George F. Will, author of Bunts and Men at Work

"Who would think to put baseball, voodoo, drug dealing former Dominican generals and capitalist corruption together into a neat, taut thriller? The answer is April Smith, whose new book not only blends those elements seamlessly but add to the mix a sexy, athletic, adventurous, mistake-prone female protagonist named Cassidy Sanderson, who is one of the better things to happen to the thriller genre since Peter Hoeg gave us Smilla of the sense of snow "
--The New York Times

"As a fan of baseball, quality suspense writing, and the work of April Smith, I loved Be the One -- it has an ingenious plot, a gripping pace and winning characters. It's really a fine book."
        -- Scott Turow

"Be the One has everything: sex, drugs, and baseball. In Cassie Sanderson, baseball scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers, April Smith has created a convincing, compelling woman operating in the most American and most masculine milieu: professional baseball. The non-stop action proves that Smith's success with North of Montana was no fluke."
-- Sara Paretsky

"Firm and judicious...Provocatively rephrase[s] the perennial tale of a woman in a man's world."
-- Publishers Weekly

"Peopled with characters as perfectly rendered as a hundred mile an hour fastball, Be the One is a brilliant, original crime novel. As the web of deceptions, lies, and threats increased, I could not stop turning the pages. April Smith has hit this one out of the park."
--Robert Crais, author of Demolition Angel and L.A. Requiem

"Be the One is wonderfully told, powerfully exciting, and entirely engrossing."
-- Robert B. Parker, author of Hugger Mugger and Hush Money

"April Smith writes wonderfully well, with vivid images and a captivating rhythmn. Both Cassidy Sanderson and her world are engaging and unique."
-- Richard North Patterson, author of Dark Lady and No Safe Place