Tal Pinchevsky, "Breakway"

I'm a big fan of escape literature -- not escapist literature, but literature about clever escapes from prison camps and totalitarian regimes. So I approached Tal Pinchevsky's new book, Breakway, with some anticipation. It's the story of hockey greats from behind the Iron Curtain who gave up their homelands to play in the NHL: people like the Stastny brothers, Petr Klima, and Sergei Fedorov.

Of course, these players didn't have to endure anything like the conditions of World War II POW's, and the contracts they got when they arrived gave them unprecedented riches, which they sometimes squandered on alcohol. So I don't really have much sympathy for them to begin with.

Nevertheless, some of the stories are interesting and, not being a hockey fan, I hadn't heard any of them before. Unfortunately, the writing is not very good and the editor didn't bother to fix the problems: misspellings, sentence fragments, and run-on sentences can be found throughout.

Bottom line: 2.5 stars out of 5, suitable mostly for hockey fans.