RiffelBooks

A hearty welcome to the RiffelBooks website, the online home of author and journalist James R. Riffel.

Click the links above for information about the suspenseful UNDER FALSE PRETENSES, A COACH AT HEART, a novel of football and family, and the humorous baseball short story, THE TRADING DEADLINE, along with blog posts about the subject matter of the books — football, baseball and organized crime. Note that A COACH AT HEART has several “sub-pages” that add context to the story, so you can click the title for the novel’s main page or one of those additional pages in the drop-down menu.

Purchase for Kindle or for print

On the blog page:

Knowing when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em is as important in sports as the casino. The football programs featured in A COACH AT HEART have provided a clear lesson.

Pac-12 schools have agreed to mediation to resolve legal disputes over realignment. It might be their best chance to save the conference, and at a time when they haven’t been this attractive in years.

The dirty secret of the recent conference realignment in college sports is that it’s all about money — just not for the reasons you might think.

The summit of Mt. Lemmon, near Tucson, is the setting for the climax of UNDER FALSE PRETENSES. The mountain is high and cool, with amazing views and trails, and subject to wildfire.

Who knows how Major League Baseball’s expanded playoff system will turn out. The chase to get there, however, has been a major bust.

Detective Percale investigates the theft of blankets from a man on a cold night in The Bedding Caper. A short story in the October issue of Mystery Magazine.

USC and UCLA think the grass will be greener in the Big Ten. It may or may not work out that way. Plus, a couple of realignment scenarios for West Coast college sports.

June 4 is the 80th anniversary of the World War II Battle of Midway. Parallels with the current Russian invasion of Ukraine are uncanny.

The college football playoff should stick with four teams. Expansion will not solve any of the system’s problems, but the 2021 season did!

Click the About page for more info about James R. Riffel and his writing.