It would be easy for the sleuthing of these two eighth graders to violate the perimeters of plausibility, but John Feinstein doesn't take those shortcuts and hope his young readers won't know the difference every lead that Stevie and Susan Carol follow is legitimately earned and has to be conceivable for a pair of thirteen-year-olds to dig up using only their own wits as they investigate a story that could blow big-time college sports apart. He writes intriguing, flavorful characters, not settling for paper dolls to inhabit the clever mystery he's created Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson are realistic kids with genuine motivations, who require time to warm up to each other before they can effectively coalesce to take on corruption among the elite in an organization as powerful as the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He knows how to structure a mystery with plot twists guaranteed to keep readers off balance. Together, Chip, Stevie, and Susan Carol go through twists and turns of the plot, finding out that the people they thought they could trust cannot be trusted, and that the people they thought were responsible for the blackmail are in fact not involved in the way that they assumed.The storytelling talents of John Feinstein, author of 1986's classic sports memoir A Season on the Brink: A Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers, translate well for the youth set. Chip joins the two student reporters in the investigation to uncover who is responsible for the plot to blackmail him and why. They concoct a story to get into Chip's hotel room and confront Chip with the information they overheard. After overhearing the situation, Stevie and Susan Carol struggle with what to do with the information they've acquired and who they can tell the story to help them stop the blackmail.Īs Stevie and Susan Carol start their own investigation, they enlist the help of the blackmailee, Chip Graber.

What the two take away from the conversation is that Chip is being blackmailed to throw the championship game between MSU and Duke. While looking around in the area where CBS sets up during the Final Four, Stevie and Susan Carol overhear a conversation between the star player for MSU, Chip Graber, and an unknown man in charcoal gray suit. As winners of the contest, Stevie and Susan Carol act as student reports covering the Final Four in New Orleans. Basket ball Writers Association essay contest. Both kids are in junior high and winners of the U.S. The story follows the two main characters, Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson. Feinstein is a Duke graduate and former sports writer. Last Shot is a novel by the best-selling author John Feinstein.

The last shot john feinstein