In his highly entertaining 15th book, Lupica, the syndicated New York Daily News
sports columnist and ESPN commentator, takes another turn as novelist, revisiting his hell-for-leather protagonist, Jack "The Jammer" Molloy, the wisecracking, hard-boozing, womanizing owner of the NFL's New York Hawks. As this sequel to Bump and Run
begins, Molloy turns the team over to his evil twin siblings, Ken and Babs, and takes off for Europe with the love of his life, Annie Kay, an up-and-coming TV sports anchor. After Annie heads back to her job in New York, Molloy is living the high life in London when the twins inform him that they have sold their half of the Hawks to the infamous megalomaniacal entrepreneur, Dick Miles, for a cool half-billion. When Miles offers to buy half of Molloy's half and let him stay on as team president for a year, Molloy—against the advice of mentor Billy Grace and Annie Kay—decides to take the deal. Within a month, Miles fires both the general manager and the coach Molloy handpicked to take them to the Super Bowl. Obviously, he not only intends to run the front office, but also plans to take a hand in coaching from the sidelines. When Miles brings in a TV commentator to coach and a psychopathic quarterback barely out of prison on work release, Molloy knows he's made the biggest fumble of his life. Metaphorically facing fourth-and-long in the red zone of NFL boardrooms, Molloy dusts off the old flea-flicker and goes for pay dirt. (Nov. 1)
