Double Play
by Robert B. Parker
Putnam
$24.95 (288 pages)

Robert B. Parker mixes fact with fiction in “Double Play,” a bare-bones, fast-paced baseball fantasy set during Jackie Robinson’s 1947 rookie season.

Parker is best known for his Spenser novels (the basis for the TV series “Spenser for Hire”), but has stepped out of the mystery genre on a few occasions. Over a 30-year career, he’s written a thriller (“Wilderness”), a romance (“Love and Glory”), and a Western (“Gunman’s Rhapsody”).

“Double Play” focuses on Joseph Burke, a World War II veteran who was severely wounded at Guadalcanal. Burke returns home after a long, difficult rehabilitation to find that his wife has betrayed and abandoned him, leaving him bitter and hardened. But the fearless, tough-as-nails former Marine gets a chance for redemption when he stumbles into baseball history. Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey needs someone to protect Jackie Robinson as he attempts to break baseball’s color barrier. No doubt the baddies will be coming out of the woodwork looking to make life difficult for the pioneering black man. And Burke is just the man to keep them at bay.

Things heat up when a Harlem wiseguy named Paglia takes aim at Jackie. Burke must weave his way through the New York underworld, pitting gangster against gangster, to protect Jackie, and himself. Along the way Burke comes to admire and respect the baseball legend, and falls for a wild socialite named Lauren. Then, after a bloody showdown at Ebbets Field, Burke finds what he was running away from all along: love and meaning. Heart warming. But don’t expect much depth in “Double Play.”

The characters are tight-lipped, the detail sparse, emotions non-existent. The only reaction you’ll get out of Burke is a shrug—and he shrugs a lot.

Parker tries to add depth with his “Bobby” chapters, in which the author offers his reminiscences on the era. But that only highlights what is lacking in the main story. What makes minimalists good is that they do more with less. Here you just get less.

Parker fans might enjoy “Double Play,” but others should sit this one out.