Magic Time

Magic Time
W. P. Kinsella

From the author of Shoeless Joe, the book that inspired the movie Field of Dreams.Mike Houle is a college all-star second baseman in his junior year when he turns down a fourth-round draft pick offer from the Montreal Expos. He'll finish his business degree and try his luck again next year. But Mike's final year in college sees his performance take a downward slide, and his big league dreams are going the way of his stats. When Mike's agent offers him a chance to play in the Cornbelt League in Iowa, Mike can't refuse. He can even handle the isolation of living in Grand Mound once he learns he's a cinch to start at second base.Sure enough, Mike's never played better than on the Grand Mound Greenshirts, and he even begins to fall for the town's charms, including a certain Tracy Ellen Powell. That is, until he starts to suspect that when the good citizens of Grand Mound lure young men into their town, they have more on their minds than just baseball …

Magic Time

BY W. P. KINSELLA

The Friday Project An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

This ebook first published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2014

Copyright © W. P. Kinsella 2001

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

W. P. Kinsella asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

FIRST EDITION

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007497577

Ebook Edition © July 2014 ISBN: 9780007497584

Version 2014-07-31

Contents

Title Page (#uffb1658c-0755-5fa6-a6c6-0e61538042eb)

Copyright (#u15dff1e0-e2cb-5050-a8ed-8cf19b3f8027)

Prologue

1: Judging Distances

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

2: One Road Runs Straight

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

3: Fred Noonan’s Town

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

4: Barry McMartin

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

5: Safe at Home

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

6: Magic Time