Levi was simple, like a child. It was the best thing about him, and it was the worst, too.

When high school senior Jonas moves to Seattle, he is glad to meet Levi, a nice, soft-spoken guy and fellow basketball player. Suspense builds like a slow drumbeat as readers start to smell a rat in Ryan Hartwell, a charismatic basketball coach and sexual predator. When Levi reluctantly tells Jonas that Hartwell abused him, Jonas has to decide whether he should risk his future career to report the coach. Pitch-perfect basketball plays, well-developed characters, and fine storytelling make this psychological sports novel a slam dunk.

Deuker, Carl

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.

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