I've been a fan of detective novels and murder mysteries for years, from Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler to Patricia Cornwell and Jeffery Deaver but in all those years, I'd never had the opportunity to read one before publication.

Until now.

Sox fan Jere Smith (of Red Sox Fan From Pinstripe Territory) provided a number of his fellow bloggers with advanced copies of Dirty Water, a novel he co-authored with Mary Ann Tirone-Smith, with a request that we write a review, so here goes.

Set against the backdrop of last year's pennant race, the novel exposes the murky world of avaricious sports agents and the even deadlier world of people-trafficking.

An infant is abandoned in the Red Sox club house early on game day. The baby's unfortunate young mother is discovered murdered in the Back Bay Fens in sight of Fenway Park. A young ball player goes missing. The Boston PD enlist the aid of the blogging community to help unravel the mystery.

The plot skilfully blends real-world characters (David Ortiz, Jason Varitek) and places in Boston, barely-disguised blog commenters (sadly not including your Antipodean correspondent) and entirely fictional characters (Rocky Patel the Gujarati Boston PD detective and the Mexican-American family at the centre of the mystery).

As you may have gathered, I really enjoyed the read and would recommend it to anyone. I've already decided that my next pilgrimage to Fenway Park might well include a stay at the Edgerly Road B&B (the Oasis Guest House if I'm not mistaken).

The book's official publication date is September 1st in the US. God knows when it'll be available in New Zealand!

 Dirty Water by Mary Ann TironeSmith and Jere Smith is published by Hall of Fame Press. ISBN: 978-09776240-2-7

You can buy it on Amazon, here: http://tinyurl.com/57spol

On an entirely personal note, I found reading a pre-publication bound galley proof interesting. While I was out of work a couple of years ago, I took a course in proofreading and I found myself spotting some things which I hope don't make it into print (the reference to square acres and the inversion of the West Coast/East Coast time difference: lunchtime in Boston isn't late afternoon in LA).

Sitting in the back row of a United 757 en route to LAX, reflecting on my long weekend in the upper hemisphere and four great ballgames.

The three games in what the locals apparently call Balto where seriously good fun including, as they did, Manny's 500^th and 501^st career home runs, a reunion with Kelly and Beth from San Diego last year and meeting Cyn, Crystal and Brooke (Crystal's sister) from SG.

Not least of the new acquaintances was the legendary Steve who appears in a number of these photos. He must be the most photographed stuffed ferret on Earth, although some say he's actually alive.

The downer of the Baltimore experience for me was losing some gear to an opportunist thief who broke a window in my rental car to nick an MP3 player and a GPS system. The Maryland Transit Police couldn't have been more helpful, which is more than can be said for the Hertz tow truck guy, who took two hours to arrive and couldn't find the Hertz lot for another hour. The lot was less than three miles from where the break-in happened. Dipstick.

Manny's 500^th came earlier that evening, after a day of torrential summer rain and a brief palooze with Kelly, Cyn et al (who the F**k is al - Ed.) in Sliders, a bar that contrived to run out of hamburger on what must have been one of their busiest days of the season. Dinks.

The Manny shot was the most amazing thing I've seen in a ballpark, a no-doubter into the centrefield bleachers that I followed for all of its flight. There is no other sound like the noise which greeted its landing. The whole stadium exploded and cheering, screaming and clapping continued well into the next at-bat. I have no clue sitting here who pitched, what the count was, what the game situation was. None of that matters. I saw a 500^th home run. There have only been 23 before this and I was there, crying as it turned out.

I was in the far right field club seats, level with the foul pole and had a great view of the flight and the scramble for the ball, won by a true fan, a Mr Woo, who immediately gave it back to Manny and will surely find a place in baseball heaven.

For the Friday and Sunday games I had seats with Kelly, Beth, Cyn and Steve. Apart from Steve they are raucous, passionate, funny and delightful company. Steve said little but always had a daft grin on his face. He knows when he's well off.

Sunday's game included a standing O for Manny and #501 and was followed, for me by the Mount Vernon staff picnic, held in the grounds of Washington's home overlooking the Potomac. I got to see Kiana, her Mom Stacey, and my sister Anne and to savour the fabulous view and an idyllic summer's evening. Oh, and I persuaded the DJ to play Dirty Water.

So much for Balto (its abbreviated that way on road signs and on the Light Rail system maps) and on for a flying visit to Bahston. I had figured that, after coming 12000 miles, I couldn't not go to Fenway.

The highlight here, apart from returning for the first time in three years, was the truly awesome standing O Manny got on his first at-bat. If the Sox FO don't exercise their options next year and in 2010, they should be taken out and shot.

Paloozing on this occasion took the form of a one-on-one session in the Cask & Flagon with Josh Blue who can drink free Guinness like a native. (I kid, JB, if you're reading this). For some reason, probably not unrelated to the Sam Adams consumed, I have no photographic record.

Today was ANZAC Day in New Zealand and Australia, a public holiday commemorating, particularly, the military disaster that was Gallipoli, as well as their war dead in lots of other actions.

I had booked a couple of nights in a random hotel in Napier, with the only condition that it should have a sea view. It (the Te Pania Scenic Circle) turns out to be across the road from an NZ war memorial, the scene at dawn today of a service of remembrance, one of hundreds across the country and in Aus.

I was up before dawn to catch the sunrise - Napier is the easternmost city and therefore the first to see the new day - and to catch Justin Masterton's MLB debut, a convincing performance screwed royally by the walking wounded who are the Sox bullpen at the moment. Little Manny in particular apparently looked like death warmed up (by the seventh I'd given up on a flaky mlb.tv and was listening to Joe C and Dave O'Brien on WRKO radio) and Justin's 2-run lead was pissed away.

Napier was flattened by an earthquake and subsequent fires in 1931 and rebuilt mostly in Art Deco style which led to buildings like these:

which has absolutely nothing to do with anything but they're pretty!

Tomorrow's game in St Pete is a more civilised early lunchtime start for me and I've decided to find an Internet cafe to watch the game, in an effort to resurrect my ALDS and ALCS mojo.

Oh, and 15-9, leading the division, Papi getting his groove back, Manny about to reach 500, the kids looking awesome. What's not to love about the 2008 Red Sox?

How, you may ask, had a man of my advanced years come to be sleeping in a rental car in a seaport car park in New Plymouth on Easter Sunday night? Thereby, as they say, hangs a tale.

It sort of started three or so years ago when Ben (my younger son) dragged me in front of his stereo and virtually instructed me to listen to In Between Dreams, Jack Johnson's first (?) album. I was suitably impressed, became a fan and have bought all his output since, including the not-so-wonderful Curious George soundtrack.

Anyway, when tickets went on sale for his three-show NZ tour, I opted for the New Plymouth date, on the grounds that it was reasonably accessible compared to Christchurch or Napier and it was on a Sunday. I barely noticed it was Easter Sunday - mistake, as we shall see.

Baulking at the idea of a 10 hour roundtrip drive, I booked a flight with Air NZ and a local rental car to get to the venue from New Plymouth airport. I planned to get into town four hours ahead of the concert to find a motel for the night (there are literally thousands of motels in NZ). Mistakes numbers two and three as it turned out.

The flight from Wellington was cancelled and I was offered a 'reroute' up to Auckland and back down to NP, with, by the way, a four hour layover in Auckland. So I would get into NP as the venue gates opened, with no time to look for a room.

The TSB Brooklands Arena is truly magical: a covered stage built on an island at one end of a small lake with the viewing area a grassy slope just across a small stretch of water. I found a good spot and sat down to wait as the large (by NZ standards) crowd gathered and the sun set.

The gig began around 7:30 with a too-long warm up set from a guy called Matt Costas and Jack Johnson appeared around 8:45.

I watched for around an hour and decided to leave. Not having somewhere to stay was getting me twitchy and sitting on the ground was doing nothing for my back spasms.

As it turned out, I didn't miss too much more music. Around 10 p.m. some of the crowd decided they'd rather be nearer the stage and piled into the lake where dancing and cavorting ensued. The set was stopped while the water was cleared, Jack played a couple more songs and finished with hundreds of kids in the water again.

I. meanwhile, was engaged in a short and fruitless search for a room. A nice lady in the Plymouth Hotel gently reminded me it was the Easter weekend (a four-day holiday in NZ) and "there's the Jack Johnson concert at Brooklands".

Every hotel, motel and B&B for miles around had been booked for weeks. I stood no chance. Everyone and his brother was in town on holiday and all his brother's mates and their girlfriends were here for the Jack Johnson gig.

So it was, dear reader, that I ended up parked at the water's edge in the port area of New Plymouth, gazing at a sky filled with more stars than I've seen in ages, with a full moon lighting the waves, curled up in the back of the Nissan, following the first live blog of the season.

Bliss.

Matsuzaka pitched two innings for two hits and no runs, with the defence turning two double plays behind him. The offence later came through with back to back homers from Youk and Tek. In the end, 8-3 was good day's work although by the end, most of the guys on the field were unknowns, probably to each other as well as to most of the fans.

Meanwhile, Coco Crisp was hitting and running the bases like a man possessed, or more likely, a man putting together a highlight reel. I'm getting ambiguous about centre field. After September and the postseason, I wanted Ellsbury to start this year because I thought Crisp's offence wasn't outweighed by his D. Now, somehow, I think there might be room for both.

Joshua Patrick had the day off today, so I thought I'd post his street sign. I've driven past this sign at RNZPC every day for more than a year but I only got around to taking this picture last week. No. 19 pitches at 1 p.m. Sunday I think, which is 5 a.m. Monday for me. I suspect he'll be starting  without me.

The WS game happened in the NZ Spring and we've had a great Summer which probably still has some legs, so I guess I can look forward to watching at least some games on my deck with a glass or two of wine.

The long wait was punctuated for me by my great Christmas trip (see earlier posts) and a last-minute trip to the UK to visit my son in hospital. Since I got back, work has been getting in the way as it often does, but now I'm ready.

Bring it on.

Long story about the validity or otherwise of my NZ driver's licence, the upshot of which was that I was obliged to accept a tow off the Interstate at a cost of $100.

Emails to Virginia State Police in Richmond and to the Governor's office finally bore fruit when this  cheque arrived in the post. Whoopee!

Initially, the Lieutenant dealing with the issue had used what I thought was the classic 'the cheque's in the post' as of 10th January line, but after 12 days it finally arrived today (postmarked, incidentally, 16th January).

I have no clue what my Kiwi bank will make of it, or for that matter how much commission they might take. But, if you're in Baltimore in May the Milkybars are on me or, rather, the VSP.

Edited to add: My bank made $128.56 of it (Kiwi dollars of course) which isn't bad.

• Stay in NZ in mid-Summer and have Christmas and New Year alone.
• Go back to the UK, to the cold, dark and damp for a brief reunion with my sons (individually, as they’re not speaking to each other).
• Come to the US for a family Christmas with Anne, Stacey and Kiana and a warm welcome from friends here. No brainer.

And the bonus: an invitation to spend some time with Ted and his family. I don't normally post photo galleries here but these are some memories of my family Christmas.

Present opening traditionally happens on the floor

Kiana.

Cameras for everyone.

Stacey and the Scoobydoo Castle game.

The Dalton family at Ted’s dad’s house: Ted, Betty, Trot, Elmer, Angie, Rakes and Ciera.

Rakes, Ciera and a New Zealand Police Teddy Bear.

The assembled company (minus Angie behind the camera).

Little and Large.

Kiana Marie

On the other hand, I haven't had much to say while watching the Santana saga wax and wane and the toothless Mitchell Report thud into remainder bins at Borders all over the country.

My view: Selig should resign (yeah, right). Unless Congress wants to set up a US equivalent of the South African Truth And Reconciliation Commission, MLB should draw a line under the last ten years or so and move on, whilst tightening up its testing policy and aligning penalties with other major world sports.

As to being conned over the past few years, I still believe that the confrontation I saw between Barry Bonds and Randy Johnson in SF in 2003(?) was among the supreme sports moments I've witnessed. Alongside it was a moment in the Tour de France around  the same year, when Lance Armstrong looked directly into Jan Ulrich's eyes on a major climb and then stood on his pedals and rode away from him.

Both of these incidents have been coloured by drug revelations (actual adimissions in the case of Ulrich) but I'm still glad I saw them. Accept it all, learn from at least some of what has been reported and move on.

The Santana deal seems stuck, with the Sox not willing (praise the Lord) to add Ellsbury to the offer, and the media suggesting that, whilst he will move, no deal will be done before mid-January. My prediction for what it's worth: Ellsbury in centrefield on Sox opening day.

So, Christmas looms, for me in Virginia as an escape from NZ summer and a chance to visit with my sister, Stacey and Kiana, together with a trip to NC to meet up with Ted and his long-suffering wife and rapscallion kids:)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.