Erkut Sogut is a football agent with Mesut Ozil (currently at Fenerbahce), Kieran Gibbs (formerly of Arsenal but now with Inter Miami CF) and Kerem Akturkoglu (playing at Galatasaray) amongst his clients. He has used his knowledge of the game and the ‘world’ of football agents to produce a football crime thriller titled Deadline.

The premise as the book title suggests, focuses on events around transfer deadline day, with two agents, Ander Anaia and David Miller both looking to make a major deal happen. For Anaia this would mean him obtaining his much coveted seat at ‘The Table’ a secret group of super agents whose sphere of influence goes beyond the football pitch into a murky world of gangland and criminal activities. Meanwhile for Miller it would be his first major deal and one that would threaten to scupper that of Anaia.

Throughout the book and as the events reach a climax on deadline day, Sogut uses all the usual plot devices typically found within the crime thriller genre to tell the story. And to that end it does its job as far as it goes. Overall the impression is that Deadline is as an easy read, and one that is ideal material for taking on holiday.

Without spoiling the ending, some plotlines reach a conclusion, however the conclusion also hints at another book picking up from Deadline. If this is to be the case, then any follow-up book needs much more vigorous and thorough proofread, as the number of typos within Sogut’s debut novel proved an irritation that could so easily have been avoided.

(Publisher: CA Publishing House Ltd. February 2022. Paperback: 285 pages)

Buy here: Deadline