Name: Payback Time
Rating: 4.67 (3 reviews)
Author: Carl Deuker
ISBN: 9780547577333

7 years ago

What would you do if you found out information that could risk someone's life? Would you keep it to yourself or would you tell someone? The title of my book is Payback Time the author is Carl Deuker. The book takes place in a big city called Philadelphia and on a football field. The main character's name is Daniel but everyone calls him Mitch because they think he looks like the Michelin Man. He is a reporter for the Lincoln Light. His best friend in the story is a girl named Kimi. She is the school photographer for the Lincoln Light. Mitch and Kimi also submit their stories about the school football games to the sports editor, Chet the Jet, at the Seattle Times. Their stories are usually about a cornerback named Angel Marichal. Angel is a great player but doesn’t get a lot of playing time. Mitch doesn’t understand why Coach McNulty doesn’t play him a lot. Also, Chet the Jet always cuts the parts about Angel out of the stories Mitch sends him. Mitch decides he wants to find out why. Mitchs calls the town where Angel is from but gets a bad feeling from the person he is talking to. Mitch doesn’t give him a lot of information except that Angel now goes to Lincoln High. Mitch couldn’t shake the bad feeling he had. He went to Coach McNulty to ask questions. Coach said to meet me at a local restaurant and he would tell me everything. Coach told Mitch that when Angel was around 12 he saw 2 gangs have a shoot out. There was a boy in the middle of the shoot out and was hit. Angel ran over and pulled the boy to safety but it was too late. The boy died. Angel told the cops who the gang members were and they went to jail. Now the other gang members are after Angel to kill him. Mitch realizes the guy he talked to must be part of the gang. He now needs to figure out how to fix what he has done. Mitch realizes that the gang will come to the championship gang to hurt Angel. The players tunnel is the best place for the gang to corner him. Mitch sees the gang car in the parking lot next to the back fence. Before the game Mitch silently crawled along the back fence to the car. Then he laid down under the car and the doors opened. He waited for the gang members to get back into the car then he put a knife into one of the tires. He left the knife in the tire until it slowly went flat. Mitch then silently crawled back along the fence and went to the game. Lincoln High won the game. Mitch was still nervous that something bad was going to happen. After the game he went to the players tunnel to see if everything was ok. When everyone was coming out Angel and Coach McNulty were the last to come out. They said their goodbyes to each other. When it was all over Mitch went to his car, looked over at the gang car and saw the guys trying to fix their flat tire. Mitch felt like a hero for saving Angels life. Angel moved away and we never saw the gang members again. I would recommend this book to anyone that loves suspenseful or action/sports books. This book had a lot of twists and turns. There were a lot of surprises. They did a great job of going into detail about the football games as they happened.