Center Cut Review
The Presque Isle author has returned for another round with his Jack Austin mystery series.
Like Cut Shot and Snap Hook before it, Center Cut centers around the journeyman golfer and his life on the PGA tour. He has discovered there are much more dangerous things than water hazards and bunkers around a golf course, and this time around is no exception.
Dyslexic, Jack has found a home in the ordered sport of golf. But after a decade on the pro tour, Jack finds himself in the worst slump of his career, missing cut after cut. Everyone, from his gay black caddy to his legendary coach to his hard-working father, has a theory why. Could it be just missing his first tour win the year before, or the fact that he's married with a baby daughter now and doesn't want to leave them behind to go on the road?
Anyway, Jack has enough on his plate without getting involved in a mystery with a beautiful blond golfer's wife at its core. Yet that's where he and his friend Perkins, a security consultant for the tour, soon find themselves.
Corrigan does a masterful job of making the PGA tour and the mechanics of the sport accessible even to the nongolfer. Too esoteric a book could have left many in the clubhouse rather than out on the course where Corrigan wants them, but he avoids that sand trap.
Also, Corrigan is to be commended for not tying up everything neatly. Center Cut is rooted in reality, where there's not too many happy endings. Still, it's a satisfying, gripping read from this up-and-coming author.