Overtime

It's unlike anything you've read before. Carl Campbell lived for one thing: basketball. Regrets? Plenty. But only after he is dead. In the latest novel by Larry Ellis, Overtime: A Basketball Parable, Coach Carl Campbell - post mortem - sits on a bench behind the goal of a run-down, outdoor basketball court and reflects on his life as he watches young versions of his former players shoot hoops. It is a kind of purgatory that forces Campbell to reevaluate the decisions he made and the opportunities he missed, hoping to find a sliver of redemption. In Overtime, there are basketball scenes, but it's not a sports book. There is unrequited love, but it's not a romance. And of course there is the spirit? ghost? of Carl Campbell, but it's not a paranormal mystery. It's just a good story with unusual characters that will stay with you long after you've finished the book.