Goal! The Dream Begins

By Robert Rigby

This fast-paced teen novel about a wannabe soccer star will be well liked by all soccer fans, especially since the World Cup 2006 is going on. It’s a typical rags-to-riches story with oodles of soccer.

The story revolves around Santiago Munez, whose family comes to the United States illegally from Mexico. But life isn’t all that great for Santiago once he gets to America. He aspires to do more than mowing lawns and clearing out other people’s gardens with his dad. His father’s best plan is to buy a track and start a father & son mowing business in L.A., but Santiago’s dream is to become a soccer player, and when a British scout Glen Foy asks him to come to England, he can’t refuse.

After Santiago chases his dream of becoming a professional soccer player and lands up in Newcastle, England without his father’s permission, he finds himself homesick and quite unaccustomed to the English country. Will he able to fulfill his dream of playing for the Newcastle team even with a fierce teammate trying to sabotage him and a secret he hides from the coach?

The readers will be sympathetic to Santiago’s feelings of being in a completely new and strange land, trying to settle down and learn the customs of a new country. With funny moments abundant in the book, readers will smile at the little things in this book. A must-read for all soccer fans and those who dare to dream big.

Spawning Red Herrings: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Review by Christine Stoddard

Dear Agatha Christie,

Although your novels have often been described as thrillers rather than actual mysteries, your opus And Then There Were None (previously published as Ten Little Indians) is a clever combination of both genres. This book has every ingredient for the ideal murder mystery with a pinch of exotic elements. It made me understand that humans are paradoxically good and evil.

Every page is engaging, making your message more discreet. You splash the plot with suspense, so that it is impossible to stop reading even for a moment. Incorporating the nursery rhyme “Ten Little Indians” is a brilliant foreshadowing technique, and the enigmatic qualities of each character - especially during the exposition - add to the suspense. The classic whodunit question includes several suspects so that the reader is forced to think more than in most mysteries.

Additionally, your characters are realistic, with clear and believable motives. For instance, General Macarthur is driven by jealousy. His wife is unfaithful and secretly sends love letters to a soldier in his regiment. Their affair continues for three years until Macarthur discovers its existence and murders his wife’s lover.

The novel is disturbing yet sophisticated, without cheap scares or silly ghosts. Instead, the story is set in a plausible location with characters we’ve all stumbled on: the pious old maid, the gullible fool, the innocent pawn, the rugged adventurer, the back-stabbing fiend, the dedicated lover, the jealous spouse, the born leader, the lady’s man, and the puppeteer who purposely knots the strings of his marionettes, leaving the job of untangling to someone else. Your strokes of imagery paint an unsettling scene - a nightmare not confined to slumber. In the end, you choose to frighten the reader with reality.

And Then There Were None is a mystery heaping with generous portions of conundrum, betrayal and eeriness. Underneath it all, I found a message that will guide me through life: Never trust anyone.