Dodger Tale Finishes Strongly (It’s Fiction)

It’s nice to have one Dodger mystery solved.

No, not the trade of future Hall of Famer Mike Piazza.

I’m talking about a fictional mystery--April Smith’s new novel, “Be the One,” about a Dodger rookie from the Dominican Republic who is beset by blackmailers.

The drama also involves Cassidy Sanderson, the hard-drinking scout who signed him (the only female scout in the major leagues, in fact). She hasn’t had much success lately and fears that if the Dominican player is a washout, she’ll have to “start a new career stacking cartons at Sport Chalet.”

Smith takes the reader around the bases from the Dominican Republic to Vero Beach, Fla., to Laguna Beach and L.A., not to mention the Glendale Galleria.

And there’s a satisfying conclusion. Unlike the case with Piazza.

MORE STADIUM SUSPENSE: “Be the One,” by the way, was preceded by another mystery set in Chavez Ravine, Crabbe Evers’ “Bleeding Dodger Blue.”

In this potboiler, the manager of the Dodgers is murdered by one of his players outside a taco stand on Sunset Boulevard. I can’t remember how it ends. I think it turns out that the player’s contract said he had the right to bump off the boss.

IF YOU HAVE TO ASK THE PRICE: Gar Haywood, who, coincidentally, is also a talented mystery novelist (“All the Lucky Ones Are Dead”), wrote here about a real-life matter:

“I saw a truck on the freeway with an advertisement on the trailer for CarsDirect.com, the online car purchasing site. The tag line for the ad was ‘Never Overpay Again.’

“Which was fine, except that the car depicted in the ad was an Acura NSX, the car maker’s top-of-the-line exotic sports car, which has a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $88,745. That’s EIGHTY-EIGHT THOUSAND, SEVEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS.

“So what’s CarDirect.com’s message here, exactly? Draw the line at $80,000, and not a hundred dollars more? Sheeesh!”

GNAWING ERROR? In one weekly newspaper, Susan Tellem of Malibu saw a list that gave Marina del Rey an uncomplimentary name (see accompanying). Hey, just because a lot of single guys live there. . . .

NUDE GLOW: If you’re ever in a pub in Scotland and someone asks you, “Do you have a naked light?” don’t be alarmed, advise Richard and Carla Krause (see photo). (In Marina del Rey, I’d be careful.)

OOH L.A. L.A.! I’m not so sure how innocent the pine in one advertised breadbox was, though (see accompanying).

L.A. INSULT OF THE DAY: In Ohio for a class reunion, writer Lee Harris heard a commercial for Canada’s Molson ale that gave different vacation suggestions.

Including: “You could go to L.A. and breathe smog from unidentifiable foreign cars.” (Some of them costing $88,000, no doubt.)

Responding to this attack from north of the border, Harris quoted the great philosopher Rodney Dangerfield on the subject: “Canada--they started a country and nobody showed up.”

miscelLAny:

Walt Henry of Downey figures doctors must really be in the era of specialization. When he tried to arrange to have foot surgery, “my HMO demanded to know whether it was the right or left foot before assigning a doctor.”

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., 90012 and by e-mail at [email protected].