First Draft

Ever since TV introduced fast-cut incoherence, narratives--whether they are virtual or in print--have become choppier and continuity has become less relevant. April Smith’s “Be the One” is choppier and more discontinuous than most. Her first novel, “North of Montana,” was much the same: fast-paced, jarring, agitated and a damn good read. It also featured Ana Grey, a rash, headstrong heroine, a tough professional in a world of men, who boozed and philandered with the worst of them (and the best too) and proved herself their equal in vigor and valor, yet feminine in vivaciousness, sensibilities and yearnings. Grey had been an agent of the FBI, granddaughter of a retired policeman. This time Smith’s hybrid heroine is a scout for the Dodgers, the only female scout in the major leagues, living and drinking as hard as the competitive males around her.

Daughter of a pitcher, sister of a great white hope who died before he made it, Cassidy Sanderson played shortstop on a full athletic scholarship at UCLA, then professional hardball for the all-female Colorado Silver Bullets before she became a talent hunter in her 30s. The quest for a hot prospect took her to the Dominican Republic, whence she returned with a phenomenal batsman, Alberto Cruz, and an equally phenomenal lover, Joe Galinis, a millionaire wheeler-dealer developer-about-town. But nothing fails like success, and her prowess invites trouble.

No sooner has Cruz been signed for the Dodgers than he is threatened with blackmail. Galinis too comes under fire, as does Sanderson, who struggles to make sense of the mazy mess she’s trapped in, a bag of tricks that gets messier at each turn. Her job is on the line; so are the lives of Cruz and Galinis. Gambling, drinking, drugs, deception, aggression, extortion, sorcery, murder, trust, mistrust, comradeship, carnality, love and loss are snarled in a hornets’ nest, and neither characters nor readers are spared. Dialogue is terse, tectonics tortuous, suspense supercharged and the resolution, when it comes, is many harsh miles away from anything happy.

As its predecessor was, the book is great on contemporary details. Galinis’ daughter, Nora, vice president of a hotel corporation, is a Harvard MBA. Galinis’ dream project is to build a sports complex (hotel, galleria, eateries, theaters, shops, the works) that would replace Dodger Stadium and revive the city’s decrepit downtown. (As if anything could.) Smith’s women work out; they run their lungs out; they’re even more hung up on fitness than they are on sex; they are quick to notice abs and pecs, their own and those of others; they’re as promiscuous as men and as foulmouthed and as electronically dependent. Most of the crucial conversations take place over the phone, preferably a cell phone. Most of the police investigation is electronically enhanced. All that is missing for perfect realism are the SUVs--in their surging mass on the road.

Engineering morasses where casually reckless self-indulgent but stoic characters flounder among predicaments of their own making, Smith repeats and improves on her first performance as a crafty creator of hard-boiled perplexities with soft centers. That’s why her second novel is even more gripping than her first. More irritating also.

Much of the story is told in evocative flashbacks that fill the book with italic intercalations that clog the yarn’s unfolding as garbage blocks water in a gutter, and passages of fine writing and literary symbolism prolong suspense by making longueurs longer. Then, precisely because most of Smith’s characters are not cardboard cutouts, their behavior matters, especially when it gets in the way of narrative flow. Tangled in the high-stakes tensions of sports, finance and corruption, Sanderson lunges at life but keeps halting for tedious introspective reflections. OK, so she is complex. Like the rest of us. But do her private hang-ups have to intrude so intrusively?

Finally: How many readers these days need to be persuaded that women, alas, are very much like men? If Sanderson chooses to behave as men do and to make a point that may be still worth making, why should she not try to behave like nice men? But would many keep reading if she did?