Double play - Robert B Parker

It is 1947, the year Jackie Robinson breaks major-league baseball's colour barrier by playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers - and changes the world. This is the story of that season, as told through the eyes of a difficult, brooding and wounded man named Joseph Burke. Burke, a veteran of World War II and a survivor of Guadalcanal, is hired by the Brooklyn Dodgers manager to guard Robinson. While Burke shadows Robinson, a man of tremendous strength and character suddenly thrust into the spotlight, the bodyguard must also face some hard truths of his own.