Customer Reviews

The Baby Game

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Toby Dillon graduated law school one year ago. He resides in California, but his "office" is at his home. His "home" is currently in one of the condos ringing the golf course of the Coral Canyon Country Club. (Free perk due to his side job as their assistant tennis pro.) Toby is one of the rare lawyers that are actually out to help people, rather than to fatten his own wallet. His specialty is adoption.

Brogan Barlow and Rita MacGilroy are famous movie stars. Toby and Brogan were geeks (friends) together in high school. So to Toby, Brogan and Rita were just great friends who wanted to adopt a baby. All seems to be going pretty much normal. But the birth mother gives birth without going to the hospital. No one thinks too much about it though, because the birth mother hands over the baby girl to the happy new parents.

The birth mother has a time limit, during which she may change her mind about giving her baby up for adoption. One day after this date, Brogan and Rita are celebrating with Toby and some friends when a call comes in that will rock their foundation. In result to the call, the new parents and Toby rush to question the birth mother only to find her gone. Brogan and Toby begin to search for answers to some hard hitting questions. Problem is that the people they need to speak with either do not exist or are turning up dead.

***** I cannot tell more without giving away spoilers, which I refuse to do. The phone call is the turning point, where the reader finds out exactly WHAT the mystery is. However, if you want to figure out the "who" and "why" you will have to pay attention from the very first page. This may be Randall Hicks's first mystery novel, but he wrote about something he knows well, adoption. This gives the mystery a much greater depth and makes it all very realistic. While you find yourself putting together clues with the main characters, you will also find yourself very entertained. Much humor to lighten things up a bit. The result is a wonderful novel that you end up reading more than once. Excellent! *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

The Baby Game is one of those rare books where the improbable works seamlessly. The serious parts make the hairs on the back of your neck tingle and the funny parts are laugh out loud hilarious. An ex Peace Corps, assistant tennis pro, home schooled California attorney, who drives a Ford falcon convertible with a wooden cigar store Indian permanently wedged in the passenger seat sounds like the loser of a Dumb and Dumber contest, but Toby Dillon turns out to be believable, lovable, and competent, in roughly that order. The plot is deliciously twisty and at the halfway point, I still had no idea who the bad guys were. Although there is real jeopardy, there is still some question at that point as to whether a crime had even been committed. Well, actually Toby was well along the way to the five felonies he commits in the course of the book, but otherwise...All is well that ends well and the ending of The Baby Game - "And then I kissed her." The best way to describe it, The Baby Game is similar to Lawrence Sanders' McNally series, only a whole lot better.

Hicks has written a particularly engaging character in Toby. I also appreciated his making the celebrity couple real, grounded people. There was interesting legal information which didn't bog down the story, and some good twists along the way. But it was Toby's relationship with his grandfather was particularly touching. The book is a bit mystery light, but is an entertaining first book and a series I shall definitely follow.

In San Diego County, California, recent law school graduate attorney Toby Dillon opens his shingle out of his condo overlooking the Coral Canyon Country Club where he also serves as an assistant tennis instructor. Tony's legal practice deals with adoptions.

Movie stars Brogan Barlow and Rita MacGilroy want to adopt so they turn to Toby, who was Brogan's high school pal when they were nerds. Toby arranges things with a single neighbor Sammy who became pregnant from a casual inseminator as the state would say. Toby takes Sammy to the hospital in his nightwear, but instead of her going inside with him, she vanishes with his car. Besides Toby's PJs embarrassment and concern for Sammy, things went great even though the biological mother gives birth outside a hospital. Toby's clients have a daughter to lovingly raise together until a day later a phone call nukes their world; With Tony they go to see the birth mom to obtain the truth, but she has vanished. Other follow-ups go nowhere as those they need to speak with are either dead or never existed in spite of the paper trail.

THE BABY GAME is a fabulous tale that starts off as a simple family drama, but quickly turns into an exciting action-packed thriller. Once the call comes, the story line accelerates from a celebrating couple with their friends to a deep tense investigation in which nothing goes right. Randall Hicks insures his exhilarating story line seems realistic with the tidbits involving adoption so that the audience has a one sitting chilling investigative novel that feels as if it could happen.

Harriet Klausner

Toby Dillon only partially grew up. Yes, he's a lawyer. But he only does that part time. The other part of the time, he is the assistant tennis pro at the country club where he lives.

Toby has stumbled into the adoption business, helping couples navigate all the legal proceedings necessary to make their new child officially their own. It's a specialty he loves because it allows him to help people.

His latest clients are really special to him. They are Hollywood power couple Brogan Barlow and Rita MacGilroy. But to Toby, they are his best friends. The three grew up together in a tiny town in northern San Diego county. So, naturally, Toby is anxious to help them.

Things go well, and the news of the adoption leads off a whirlwind press tour that Toby becomes part of.

Then comes a phone call with a shocking revelation for Brogan and Rita. Naturally, they want to question the birth mother, but she has disappeared. What's really been going on?

Let's be clear, I loved this book. Between the humor and the twists, I couldn't put the book down.

The story starts a little slowly, with frequent pauses to give us some history on Toby. We do need to get to know him, but frequent flashbacks are a bit of a pet peeve. Still, that was the only flaw. Once the story gets going, I could not put the book down, staying up late a couple nights in a row to read just a little further. The plot twists and turns all over the place, yet I found every one of them logical and believable. And the characters were real. Toby, Brogan, and Rita felt like true friends by the end of the book. And as the book progresses, we are drawn into a darker and darker web.

Author Randall Hicks has created a new series that shows lots of promise. I can't wait to visit Toby and company again.

I love discovering new authors. He really writes mystery/suspense well, but his humor was what made me love the book. He is a 'hoot'. I do enjoy suspense, but if you can add humor - WOW! In my book, he's got it all. Oops, one more thing, he knows adoption, and that's the basis of this book, although this is fiction. What people and criminals will do for a baby! I'm waiting for his new book, Baby Crimes, which comes out in 2007.

Baby Game deserves a much higher placement among Amazon rankings! New author Hicks introduces a new kind of hero with Toby Dillon, a lawyer who's an adoption specialist. Toby brings an unusual background to his job: two years in the Peace Corps followed by law school courtesy of Uncle Charlie.

Toby's one of those tough athletic bachelor heroes with brains -- like Brady Coyne with a lot of rough edges. For a first outing, he helps his childhood friends adopt a much-loved child under bizarre but just plausible conditions.

Hicks cleverly introduces the hero and his past, although at times I had trouble keeping the dates straight. Law school - before or after Peace Corps? Must have been after. A few incidents were a little slapstick. Hicks has to remember that mystery readers tend to identify with upscale values. Robert Parker has this awareness dodwn to an art form in the Spenser series.

And I suspect we'll get gliimpses of the hero's Peace Corps life as the series goes on.

I don't usually like mysteries featuring characters who are supposed to be famous. And I find it hard to believe famous actors realy are so nice and humble and down to earth.

But I didn't feel at all tempted to stop reading or even look ahead, as I do with some authors who are far more established. I really wondered how all the pieces would come together. Hicks knows how to tell a story and I enjoyed getting an insider's view of adoption law along the way, even though I'll never adopt any creature that doesn't come equpped with fur, whiskers and paws.

Let's hope Hicks develops a following and gives us more adventures of his misguided hero.