The APPEARANCE OF IMPROPRIETY

by Walter Walker

A losing basketball team's dismal record suddenly takes a backseat to the rumor that someone on the club has been throwing games, and it is up to crusading sports columnist Colin Cromwell to find out who. Reprint.

352 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1993

About the author

This is the disambiguation profile for otherwise unseparated authors publishing as Walter Walker

Reviews

[Elizabeth Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Walter Walker delivers another solid novel -- with a structural twist -- in this 1993 book. It doesn't fit easily into a genre -- not really a mystery novel but not truly a legal thriller, either. Let's just call it a lawyer book because, in the end, the hero who resolves everything to the reader's satisfaction is a lawyer/sports agent working on behalf of his clients. Those clients are all members of the the San Francisco GoldenGaters, a professional basketball team whose members are hiding lots of interesting secrets and whose current season is beset by the rumor that the club is throwing games. Hot on the trail is an SF sports columnist. Add to that a couple of athletes who have big time talent and big time head cases, an owner from distant Massachusetts who made his money in groceries but wants a championship trophy to cement his master-of-the-universe status, a coach and a general manager with problems of their own, and readers have a potent mix of plot, sub-plots and twist the keep them guessing. Not the finest of Walker's novels, but a definite contender.

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walter Walker has written some top-notch crime novels, but I'd categorize this book as a sports novel. The plot follows a team with playoff potential and the many personalities in the sport, on the court and off. Yes, there is a crime and there is an investigating lawyer, which juices up the novel. Best appreciated by a basketball aficionado, which I am not, but it seemed pretty plausible to me.