John Feinstein is a well-known sports commentator and author who has written at least 44 books on sports-related topics. That includes at least one highly-regarded non-fiction tennis title that is slated to be reviewed on this site later this year. He also wrote one book that qualifies as the final installment of our “beach read” tennis books.
Vanishing Act: Mystery at the U.S. Open is the second book in a sports-mystery series targeted at young adults. In addition to the US Open, other books in the series are set at the Final Four, Super Bowl, World Series, the Army–Navy Game, and the Summer Olympics. The main characters, Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson, are thirteen years old in the book. That puts the target reading audience somewhere between Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew.
While the protagonists are fairly mature and very accomplished for their ages, they are not immune to middle-school angst. In fact, this book largely plays into their concerns and insecurities. At the same time, the book introduces the readers to professional tennis and the US Open. In that regard, Feinstein gets the tennis mostly right, which he should. The departures from how the “real” US Open would operate under similar circumstances might make sense to a 13-year-old, but probably not to an adult.
Vanishing Act is a decent mystery that also illuminates some of the more unseemly aspects of the sport. Sports agency is vilified in this book, and a match-fixing scandal largely fuels the story. Those themes will ring true to the contemporary tennis audience.
If I were still in middle school, I probably would have enjoyed the book to the point of inspiration. As an adult, it was satisfying, but without any potential transformational properties. I recommendVanishing Act: Mystery at the U.S. Open as a beach read to consider, particularly if you have younger readers looking for appropriate books to read.
 | Vanishing Act: Mystery at the U.S. Open |
