Bargains! PROMOTIONS
Rick Shefchik was born in Duluth, Minn., in 1952 (in the same hospital as Bob Dylan, 11 years later.) He graduated from Duluth East High School in 1970 and attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., where he received a B.A. in English/Creative Writing. After working in public relations and as a full-time musician, he began his journalism career at the Duluth News Tribune in 1978. He moved to the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1980 as a television critic, and became a feature writer and columnist in the 1990s, writing a weekly syndicated parenting column for the Knight Ridder Newswire. He lives in Stillwater, Minn., with his wife and two children.
Like a pitcher changing speeds, Shefchik takes enough off his characterizations to avoid straight-out stereotypes, and he spins a fair simile now and then--a pitch he should add to his regular repertoire. --Publishers Weekly First, it's a genuinely clever mystery, with the blackmailer not revealed until the last few pages. Second, Skarda is a likable rogue mined from the same vein as Bill Tapply's Brady Coyne or Ed Gorman's Sam McCain. Third, the baseball and pop-music trivia scattered throughout provide both a subtle soundtrack and a context for the passion that comes with being a citizen of Red Sox Nation. --Booklist
