Rush for the Gold: Mystery at the Olympics (The Sports Beat, 6) Hardcover – May 22, 2012

Finding books that my 13-year-old son will read was difficult until I found Feinstein. His books keep my son engaged and off of the video games.

If you like Olympic swimming you will like this book because it is all about Olympic swimming. I thought the book was slow to read there was not much mystery going on until the very end. Not the most interesting book I have read but I stuck with it.

This book is a lot of fun and very timely. As always, Feinstein knows a lot about the sport he writes about and brings a sense of humor as well as a mix of real and fictional characters to make the story more believable. I have purchased all of the books in this series for my teenage daughter and then read them myself. For an adult, they are brain candy. This book is a quick read that gives some inside understanding of the Olympics with appealing and realistic protagonists.

Rush for the Gold is, for the most part, a really good book. John Feinstein's imagery helped me to imagine I was with Susan Carol in the pool as part of the competition. The conflicts were engaging and kept the book moving at a fairly good clip. The only problem I had is that Susan Carol, as a character, was a little flat. She was too good and didn't struggle at all internally with the a desire to win and to be recognized versus the need to do the right thing and remain loyal to a friend. Real people would. If she had, it would have taken this from a good book to a great book.

This is the first book that I read from these author's mysteries series. Even when it's considered a book for kids and young readers I enjoyed it a lot. The main characters are Susan Carol Anderson and Stevie Thomas, two clever teenagers with a set of talents of their own, who team up to figure out what's going on with Susan Carol's agents and reps. Both are sports writers and reporters, but she's also a swimming athlete and a shining new star in the Olympian horizon. However the stakes are high because there are millions of dollars worth of sponsorships in the game. How far can everyone go to get what they want? It's definitely a good mystery book and one that young readers might really enjoy.

My son is reading this book for school. We were very happy to find this available on kindle. I haven't read it personally but my middle school age son is really enjoying it.

Good middle school read.

Great gift.