Football season is in full swing, although that expression works better for baseball. Football comes up in the Chet and Bernie mysteries, for example in BARK TO THE FUTURE. If you’ve never read C&B I have no objection if you start with it.

“Chisholm High, Chet.” Bernie took a deep breath. His eyes got a faraway look. “A kind of madhouse, in retrospect.”

What was that about? We were parked by a playing field that lay alongside a brick building, not tall but big and sort of heavy-looking. Madhouse sounded bad but nothing bad seemed to be going on. All I saw was a bunch of boys in football uniforms, many of these boys on the large side, standing around a red-faced bald little dude with a whistle hanging from his neck.

“It can’t be,” Bernie said. “Coach Raker? Shouldn’t he be dead?”

All at once I was finding Bernie a bit hard to understand. I made up my mind then and there not to let him out of my sight for the rest of the day.