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Salvation at Rio Feo
Steven Lane Smith, author
Adult; General Fiction (including literary and historical); (Market)
Tommy Gunn is a star player for the Kentucky Barber College Cutters, the most notorious underdogs in college basketball March Madness history. A bookie named Igor bribes Tommy to lose the championship game by more than three points. A bookie named The Smelt bribes Tommy to injure an opponent and win the same game.
That’s not how bribes are supposed to work. FBI Agent Bogart leads a task force bent on arresting conspirators like Igor and The Smelt and crooked players like Tommy.
When KBC loses by a point, Igor and The Smelt lose millions. Tommy runs away with all the bribe money despite desperate pleas from the love of his life, Lori Tolliver. The mobsters make repeated attempts on Tommy’s life, but plastic surgery makes Tommy’s face unrecognizable to them. Tommy changes his name for good measure.
Having lost his chance at fame as a player, Tommy seeks glory as a coach in the hope-starved town of Rio Feo, New Mexico, where he recruits a team made up of wrestlers, acrobats, and an eight-foot player coveted by every college team in America.
The pressures of mobsters bent on revenge, pretending to be someone else, breaking every rule in the book to win games, and despairing of ever reuniting with Lori drives Tommy toward a life-changing resolution.
Tommy confronts the sum of all his fears in a conclusion that determines whether he can be saved by Lori’s unconditional love.
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