The Ringer

Sidelined from coaching his sons' baseball team because he can't resist hollering at loafers, lollygaggers, and space cadets, Ed O'Fallon hopes focusing on his daughter's tee-ball team will calm his temper. But just as Ed prepares to guide the Purple Unicorns to their best season, his work as a Denver police officer changes his life forever. O'Fallon bursts into a home on a no-knock warrant, expecting to find drugs, but instead encounters a man pointing a gun. Ed kills Salvador Santillano, a Mexican immigrant he had more in common with than he could imagine. Worse, Ed learns his commanding officer made a grave mistake on the warrant that will force everyone in Denver to take sides.Separated from her husband Salvador after their worst fight ever, Patricia Maestas discovers the police have killed him. Certain her husband never sold drugs, Patricia pushes to find out the truth behind the fatal raid, even while trying to keep her volatile, grieving son Ray from following a shady friend into a north-side gang. But Ray isn't just any disaffected adolescent—he's a left-handed pitching phenomenon who throws a blistering fastball. Patricia hopes signing him up for a competitive league will keep him away from danger, but instead it puts them on a collision course with Ed, whose sons play in the same league on a rival team. Patricia and Ed are unaware of the interconnections between their lives until events on the baseball field draw them together and challenge their preconceptions.The Ringer was a semifinalist for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship and the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

Jenny Shank's stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in such publications as Alaska Quarterly Review, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Prairie Schooner, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Onion, Bust, Rocky Mountain News, Dallas Morning News, and Boulder Daily Camera. One of her stories was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and another was listed among the "Notable Essays of the Year" in the Best American Essays. She has won writing awards from the Center of the American West, the Montana Committee for the Humanities, SouthWest Writers, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. For six years she was the Denver Editor of The Onion A.V. Club, and she is currently the Books & Writers Editor of NewWest.Net. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband, daughter, and son. This is her first novel.