Editor Otto Penzler’s latest anthology, MURDER AT THE FOUL LINE, collects 14 original mysteries dealing with crime and basketball. (If you’ve kept up with the headlines in recent years, you know that combo isn’t as much as a disconnect as one first suspects.) Irresistible thanks to the cover image of a skeleton going for a lay-up, it’s a companion to Penzler’s recent sports-themed anthologies surrounding tennis and boxing, with volumes set at the horse races and the golf course to follow.

Like other Mysterious Press anthologies, Penzler presents the stories alphabetically by author. Even if they weren’t, opening with Lawrence Block is always a safe bet. In “Keller’s Double Dribble,” he once again revisits his popular hitman character Keller (last seen – at least by my count – in last fall’s stellar anthology TRANSGRESSIONS), who takes in a Pacers game before he scopes out his scheduled target. The assignment doesn’t go as planned (do they ever?), and Block’s story offers unexpected glimpses at Keller’s childhood, which prove moving and more than a little heartbreaking.

Jeffery Deaver follows Block with “Nothing but Net.” That title could describe Deaver’s style with the short-story format, but here it defines the skills of a big, dumb NBA star who’s swindled out of a cool million by some smooth-talking con men. As with all Deaver stories, the tables are turned multiple times in a manner of a few pages. The man’s a master.

Elsewhere in the collection, Michael Malone pulls off a courtroom drama most notable for having the best title in the book – “White Trash Noir” – while Parnell Hall’s “Fear of Failure” – about a law office employee investigating a college star’s possibly accidental death – may closely resemble the first half of Jonathan and Faye Kellerman’s 2004 two-in-one DOUBLE HOMICIDE, but manages to be compelling and memorable in its own way.

My favorite story, however, was “Galahad, Inc.,” a collaborative effort between Robert B. Parker and his wife Joan. Concerned with married private dicks taking on a case of a black basketball player accused of sexually molesting a white sorority girl, the tale is as fast-moving as it is fast-talking, with witty repartee that’s actually funny: “Thing is you look like Whitey Suburban’s worst nightmare. You’re black. You look black. You sound black. Of course you’d feel up a white coed at a party.” This is one couple that has series potential written all over it.

Not every effort is a slam dunk; Sue DeNymme (get it?) passes off a work that’s not as clever as it thinks, and I found Laurie King’s “Cat’s Paw” too pedestrian for an otherwise quick mix, complete with squeaking sneakers. But with the final score at 11-3, that’s still a solid win. –Rod Lott

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