OFFSIDE: A Mystery

In 2006, amid the great real estate bubble, Rick Hermannik, an adult referee of youth soccer, is found murdered in a ritzy Los Angeles suburb, his whistle left in an unnatural place. Suspicion quickly falls upon volunteer coach Diego Diaz, a one-time gang member whose hot Latino rant over an offside call pops up on YouTube. The media eagerly pursue the delicious story line of out-of-control soccer parents. Case closed-until the boyfriend of Diaz's grown daughter, Hector Rivera, a former high school soccer star but now a college dropout in a dead-end job, tries to figure out the truth, and himself.

WILLIAM P. BARRETT has worked over four decades as an award-winning journalist across the country and abroad for prominent newspapers and magazines. In chronicling a wide cross-section of the human condition, he started by covering cops, courts and local government, then became a feature writer, state reporter, foreign correspondent, national correspondent writing about very small places with very big problems, business reporter and columnist. His investigative writings have exposed financial frauds and sent miscreants to prison. A New Jersey native, he is a lawyer by education. On weekends he has refereed youth soccer in the West, including Southern California, for 17 years. This is his first book.