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The Chicago Cap Murders
What if your life depended on the Chicago Cubs making it to the World Series?
Diehard fans have always supported the team, which has not won a World Series since 1908, the longest drought in Major League Baseball, but this year people are dying for the Cubs to win—literally.
A serial killer is killing fans when the team loses, leaving them alive when the Cubs win. Either way, the killer leaves a calling card—a Chicago Cubs cap. Can the police, the Cubs, and Major League Baseball stop the Cubs Cap Killer? The case falls into the lap of Detective Slats Grodsky, once Chicago’s top cop but now resurrecting his career after a broken marriage and years of alcohol abuse. Grodsky’s road to redemption is rocky, however. Will his demons, detractors, and blunders keep him from following the killer’s trail? Tension mounts outside and inside Wrigley Field as the team fights to pile up wins—and not corpses.
Diehard fans have always supported the team, which has not won a World Series since 1908, the longest drought in Major League Baseball, but this year people are dying for the Cubs to win—literally.
A serial killer is killing fans when the team loses, leaving them alive when the Cubs win. Either way, the killer leaves a calling card—a Chicago Cubs cap. Can the police, the Cubs, and Major League Baseball stop the Cubs Cap Killer? The case falls into the lap of Detective Slats Grodsky, once Chicago’s top cop but now resurrecting his career after a broken marriage and years of alcohol abuse. Grodsky’s road to redemption is rocky, however. Will his demons, detractors, and blunders keep him from following the killer’s trail? Tension mounts outside and inside Wrigley Field as the team fights to pile up wins—and not corpses.
- GenresMystery
384 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 21, 2012
3 people are currently reading
295 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 10, 2013
"It's deathly quiet in the stadium. You may want to say a prayer as well, my friends, so I'll let you listen in silence." This small quote is all I want to pull from The Chicago Cap Murders so I don't ruin it for anyone. The chapter and scene this is from had me so riveted and engaged that I actually cried. I wouldn't have expected that from a mystery thriller, but this is a wonderfully written book with some extremely touching, human moments. This was a Goodreads Giveaway and I am so happy to have won it! Thank you Warren Friedman for giving me a great mystery, some wonderful characters, and firing me up for baseball season!!
May 19, 2023
I really wanted to like this book. I bought it on Amazon and even got a signed copy. I'm a Cubs fan, I think the premise is great, I was excited to start reading. But then.............meh. This was so all over the place. There is no suspense at all. This could have been a really taught story leading up to an exciting end, but it never went anywhere. It is full of long winded, irrelevant trivia. The "reason" for the killings just doesn't make sense. The boring description of everything about Slats had me so annoyed. This one was a no for me.
September 6, 2018
Really enjoyed this book.
January 17, 2013
Warren Friedman’s THE CHICAGO CAP MURDERS is a rip-roaring detective thriller set against the background of Cubs baseball in Chicago. Someone has been kidnapping Chicago residents, tying them up in front of their television sets, and forcing them to watch Cubs games. If the Cubs win, the perpetrator leaves and the victim lives; if the Cubs lose (and let’s face it – the Cubs have lost an awful lot of games!), the victim dies. Veteran homicide detective Slats Grodsky sets out to solve the case, with the help of his hapless partner, Charlie Brainard, reporter Tex Perryman, and just about all of Major League Baseball. What would it be like to play baseball knowing that if you blew a play it might mean someone’s death? It’s a clever and original story that had me enthralled from the first chapter.
Slats Grodsky is a great character. He’s part cynical cop with a past, part recovering alcoholic, and part golden-hearted teddy bear (his blossoming relationship with waitress Julie is both sweet and believable, and it makes a nice counterpoint to the murders and police procedural). But Slats is smarter than your average bear, and he seems to know an awful lot about a lot of things – from Chicago history to baseball – which gives him a unique perspective on both the city he serves and the case that has gripped Chicago. In some ways, this is the best part of THE CHICAGO CAP MURDERS. Friedman has incorporated so much fascinating information in this novel that I sometimes found myself losing focus on the story in my delight over the anecdotes. But not for long – the story is good enough and engaging enough to work alongside the history.
All that said, a few things did bother me about the novel. First, Friedman has decided to alternate between chapters on the Cap Murders (set in the spring of 2013) and chapters set in 1998, when Slats helped solve a Mob-related case called the Bermuda Love Triangle. I must admit to being a bit annoyed with the flashbacks, especially since it’s not until the end of the novel that the reader understands why this earlier case is important. I won’t give anything away, but be assured that there is a connection between what happened to Slats in 1998 and what happens in Chicago in 2013. Still, the alternating sections do make the novel feel a bit like two books cobbled together into one.
Additionally, I have to say that some elements of the Cap Murder case are a bit unbelievable, especially the “code” the murderer uses to choose his victims. Again, I won’t give anything away, but it would be almost impossible to find victims that meet the very complicated criteria the killer uses to choose them. I found myself scratching my head a bit too often as additional aspects of the “code” were revealed. Also, the novel’s ending was disappointingly predictable – I suspected who the final victim would turn out to be as soon as this particular character was introduced (and it is completely unbelievable that this character could ever fit the “code” the killer is using).
Even so, this was a fun book to read, and most detective fans won’t be at all bothered by either the ending or the less-than-credible aspects of the plot. Friedman is a solid writer with a good grasp of plotting. THE CHICAGO CAP MURDERS is a professionally edited book that reads as well as those of many best-selling writers today. First and foremost, I recommend it to fans of baseball, the Cubs, and the City of Chicago. If you don’t fit into any of those three categories, read it for the characters and the story. You won’t be disappointed.
[Please note: I was provided a copy of this book for review; the opinions expressed here are my own.]
Slats Grodsky is a great character. He’s part cynical cop with a past, part recovering alcoholic, and part golden-hearted teddy bear (his blossoming relationship with waitress Julie is both sweet and believable, and it makes a nice counterpoint to the murders and police procedural). But Slats is smarter than your average bear, and he seems to know an awful lot about a lot of things – from Chicago history to baseball – which gives him a unique perspective on both the city he serves and the case that has gripped Chicago. In some ways, this is the best part of THE CHICAGO CAP MURDERS. Friedman has incorporated so much fascinating information in this novel that I sometimes found myself losing focus on the story in my delight over the anecdotes. But not for long – the story is good enough and engaging enough to work alongside the history.
All that said, a few things did bother me about the novel. First, Friedman has decided to alternate between chapters on the Cap Murders (set in the spring of 2013) and chapters set in 1998, when Slats helped solve a Mob-related case called the Bermuda Love Triangle. I must admit to being a bit annoyed with the flashbacks, especially since it’s not until the end of the novel that the reader understands why this earlier case is important. I won’t give anything away, but be assured that there is a connection between what happened to Slats in 1998 and what happens in Chicago in 2013. Still, the alternating sections do make the novel feel a bit like two books cobbled together into one.
Additionally, I have to say that some elements of the Cap Murder case are a bit unbelievable, especially the “code” the murderer uses to choose his victims. Again, I won’t give anything away, but it would be almost impossible to find victims that meet the very complicated criteria the killer uses to choose them. I found myself scratching my head a bit too often as additional aspects of the “code” were revealed. Also, the novel’s ending was disappointingly predictable – I suspected who the final victim would turn out to be as soon as this particular character was introduced (and it is completely unbelievable that this character could ever fit the “code” the killer is using).
Even so, this was a fun book to read, and most detective fans won’t be at all bothered by either the ending or the less-than-credible aspects of the plot. Friedman is a solid writer with a good grasp of plotting. THE CHICAGO CAP MURDERS is a professionally edited book that reads as well as those of many best-selling writers today. First and foremost, I recommend it to fans of baseball, the Cubs, and the City of Chicago. If you don’t fit into any of those three categories, read it for the characters and the story. You won’t be disappointed.
[Please note: I was provided a copy of this book for review; the opinions expressed here are my own.]
November 28, 2012
Tossing a Different Pitch into the Major Leagues
Warren Friedman knows his stuff. This debut novel proves that dreams can and do come true. Friedman is a successful pharmacist who apparently has had a lifelong wish to become a writer, and in the substance of THE CHICAGO CAP MURDERS he shows that he can concoct a mystery thriller as well as a complex pharmacological prescription.
This book will particularly appeal to diehard (no pun intended) fans of baseball, but as one who is not involved in that passion the grit of the character development and the pacing of the story with a beautiful arc line that throws a great ending at the reader, makes this book appeal simply as literature.
The story has been summarized many times here in these reviews: the pennant-less Chicago Cubs have a strong following and the fans every year - but this one in particular - are pushing for a chance at the World Series. Into this mix arises a serial killer who murders fans and leaves a signature bit of evidence - a Chicago Cubs cap, very properly placed on the murder victims' bodies. Enter Detective Slats Grotsky, fighting a history of being a fallen cop due to alcoholism and a fractured personal life: `when the going gets tough the tough get going' applies to the manner in which Slats lands in the center of this seemingly insoluble case. After a maze of fascinating incidents paced like a trip through a mirror-distorted carnival fun house the case is solved, and likely few will figure it out before Friedman lets us in on it.
Where the novel gains stature is in the pacing. Friedman has the concept of tossing in background information, dated in time, in a way that keeps his story rolling forward. The layout of the book is conducive to fast reading also: the font size is excellent and there is space between paragraphs and conversation lines that subconsciously gives the reader the sense that the story is moving at an even more rapid rate than the fastball tale. So for even non-baseball addicted readers this is, simply put, a fine adventure of a story.
Grady Harp
Warren Friedman knows his stuff. This debut novel proves that dreams can and do come true. Friedman is a successful pharmacist who apparently has had a lifelong wish to become a writer, and in the substance of THE CHICAGO CAP MURDERS he shows that he can concoct a mystery thriller as well as a complex pharmacological prescription.
This book will particularly appeal to diehard (no pun intended) fans of baseball, but as one who is not involved in that passion the grit of the character development and the pacing of the story with a beautiful arc line that throws a great ending at the reader, makes this book appeal simply as literature.
The story has been summarized many times here in these reviews: the pennant-less Chicago Cubs have a strong following and the fans every year - but this one in particular - are pushing for a chance at the World Series. Into this mix arises a serial killer who murders fans and leaves a signature bit of evidence - a Chicago Cubs cap, very properly placed on the murder victims' bodies. Enter Detective Slats Grotsky, fighting a history of being a fallen cop due to alcoholism and a fractured personal life: `when the going gets tough the tough get going' applies to the manner in which Slats lands in the center of this seemingly insoluble case. After a maze of fascinating incidents paced like a trip through a mirror-distorted carnival fun house the case is solved, and likely few will figure it out before Friedman lets us in on it.
Where the novel gains stature is in the pacing. Friedman has the concept of tossing in background information, dated in time, in a way that keeps his story rolling forward. The layout of the book is conducive to fast reading also: the font size is excellent and there is space between paragraphs and conversation lines that subconsciously gives the reader the sense that the story is moving at an even more rapid rate than the fastball tale. So for even non-baseball addicted readers this is, simply put, a fine adventure of a story.
Grady Harp
December 2, 2012
When it comes to murder, the city of Chicago has the unfortunate distinction of being the number one city in the USA. The Chicago Cubs' baseball team, on the other hand, have not been number one (won a World Series) since 1908 much to the chagrin of their die-hard fans. By taking these two seemingly unrelated facts, adding an obsessed and methodical serial killer, a likeable Detective named Slats Grodsky, and a pretty ingenious plot, first time author Warren Friedman has produced a page turner with an unusual hook.
While THE CHICAGO CAP MURDERS is not the first cop novel with a protagonist who is a recovering alcoholic with enough baggage for a round the world trip, it is a good thriller that provides not only drama but also information and statistics about Cubs baseball that will thrill any ex-Chicagoan and `Cubby" fan like myself. I will not ruin your read by giving away too much of the plot but needless to say that while readers try to connect the dots and uncover the identity of the serial killer, author Friedman throws them plenty of sliders and curve balls including a significant one on the very last page.
This is one of the better first novels I have read and while not a grand slam it is definitely an easy triple. Should Mr. Friedman choose to continue with his Slats Grodsky saga he could very easily hit it out of the park and join the ranks my other must read favorites like Michael Connelly, Vince Flynn and Lee Child. 3 ½ stars
While THE CHICAGO CAP MURDERS is not the first cop novel with a protagonist who is a recovering alcoholic with enough baggage for a round the world trip, it is a good thriller that provides not only drama but also information and statistics about Cubs baseball that will thrill any ex-Chicagoan and `Cubby" fan like myself. I will not ruin your read by giving away too much of the plot but needless to say that while readers try to connect the dots and uncover the identity of the serial killer, author Friedman throws them plenty of sliders and curve balls including a significant one on the very last page.
This is one of the better first novels I have read and while not a grand slam it is definitely an easy triple. Should Mr. Friedman choose to continue with his Slats Grodsky saga he could very easily hit it out of the park and join the ranks my other must read favorites like Michael Connelly, Vince Flynn and Lee Child. 3 ½ stars
June 14, 2013
"What if your life depended on the Cubs winning the World Series?" If this quote doesn't make you want to read this book then there might be something wrong with you! I absolutely loved this book! I have read several reviews stating that if you are a Cubs fan you have to read this book. I would agree but I think I enjoyed it even more being a St. Louis Cardinals fan!
September 12, 2012
While I felt it was slow to start, I found myself truly interested in "who done it!" I didn't see the end coming and liked the side story of the BLT. Highly recommend for baseball fans and mystery lovers.
March 26, 2013
As an avid etymologist, I really enjoyed the word play in the book. I don't understand on page 344 what Gustice (sic), I believe they meant "Justice").
August 6, 2016
Not a bad little story. Although I am not a huge sports fan, the sports themed mystery was fairly enjoyable. *I won this book in a GoodReads First Reads giveaway*
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews