3 Review(s)

For the first time ever, comes a paperback boxed set containing Gym Candy, Payback Time, Night Hoops, and Runner, four books from award-winning sportswriter Carl Deuker. From award-winning sportswriter Carl Deuker, comes this paperback boxed set of Gym Candy, Payback Time, Night Hoops, and Runner, four riveting, action-packed sportsbooks all together now for the first time. In Gym Candy, self-acceptance, peer pressure, and a heart-wrenching story about high school football take center field as running back Mick Johnson struggles for success under the always glaring - and often unforgiving - stadium lights, even if it costs him everything. In Payback Time, a thrilling mystery lurks beneath the backdrop of high school football and the criminal underworld as high school journalist Mitch True uncovers the secret past of the football team's new cornerback. In Night Hoops, loyalty, friendship, and family are tested when an unlikely friendship forms between two boys who seem to have nothing in common but basketball. In Runner, a high school runner finds himself at the center of a sinister conspiracy when he takes up a gig picking up strange packages on a daily route and delivering them to a mysterious man at the marina. AGES: 12 plus AUTHOR: Carl Deuker is a celebrated author of "top-flight sports writing matched to uncommonly perceptive coming-of-age stories" (Kirkus Reviews). He describes his younger self as a classic second-stringer: "I was too slow and too short for basketball; I was too small for football, a little too chicken to hang in there against the best fastballs. So, by my senior year the only sport I was still playing was golf." He was a teacher for many years in the Seattle area, where he now lives with his wife.