The Professional by W.C. Heinz

The Professional by W.C. Heinz was published in 1958 and tells the story of the boxer Eddie Brown training for the world middleweight championship. A simple story which in itself is not very interesting, if like me, you don't have an interest in boxing or sport in general.  It took me a couple of chapters to get into the book because of the endless sporting references about famous sportsmen/ memorable games.  However boxing is what links all these characters, whether they are the boxers, the trainers or the reporters.  A common thread, if you will.  Even though I have no interest in boxing, the characters' passion for the sport transferred to me as I was reading and so as the novel progressed I really got into it.   

The characters of the novel are very richly imagined, Eddie Brown, tall, muscular man of few words. Doc Carroll is white haired, tall and wiry and always in a foul mood. Even though there are a lot of characters in the book, they are all memorable with each of them having unique characteristics.


In the foreword by Elmore Leonard, Leonard made a good point that Heinz doesn't use adverbs to describe how a character has said their words. After going back over a few pages of the books I realised that is true. The lack of adverbs lets the reader flesh out the character in their imagination and to create their interpretation of the character. The prose is concise and not too flowery which I like and suits the setting of this book. For me, this novel was a pleasant surprise and I didn't expect I would like it as much as I did.