The Rivalry: Mystery at the Army-Navy Game

The Rivalry: Mystery at the Army-Navy by John Feinstein is more of a history book than more of a mystery. This book shows the many ways that an author can describe the very ways of one rivalry such as an author writing about the Red Sox and the Yankees. The story starts out 3 hours before the kickoff with teen reporters Susan Carol Anderson and Stevie Thomas who are also mentioned in Feinstein’s many other mystery books. The book treats pregame warm-ups as non-existent while hardly describing the way this rivalry begins every year. The Midshipmen and Black Knights have a big rivalry that dates back to 1890 which Feinstein describes in many ways along with many other sports facts in the middle and end of the book. Throughout you learn that the referees at the Army-Navy game were the refs at the Army-Notre Dame game who had friends betting on the game that it will go 0-0 at the end of regulation. The game starts out and just myself I notice that there are being flags thrown after touchdowns or field goals that made no sense. Feinstein also put President Barack Obama in the story because at halftime the president switches sides. At the end of the half it was still 0-0 with Susan and Stevie pointing out the plot. On an obvious touchdown just before half, Stevie and Susan go to tell the Secret Service that there are people betting on the game and that they are paying the refs. There is a long break in action and soon the refs are escorted out of Lincoln Financial Field and new refs are brought in. The second half starts off just like any other college or professional football game would in the second half. While heading into overtime, the book closes to an end. If you are a sports fan, this is a good book to read. But if you like mystery, this may not be the book for you. At the end the mystery turns out to be the betting by the refs which is not what I expected from this book seeming other movies and books have tried this scenario and have drastically succeeded. Overall this was a good book and you can learn a lot of history from the book but there wasn’t much mystery to get me hooked.