The Sports Beat Books in Order

The Sports Beat series follows two teenage reporters, Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson, who keep finding trouble wherever big games are played. What begins as a dream prize in a young reporters’ contest turns into a recurring front-row seat at some of the biggest events in sports, with mysteries that only kids on the inside seem willing to chase.

In Last Shot: A Final Four Mystery, Stevie and Susan Carol win a writing contest that sends them to the men’s basketball Final Four with press credentials. They expect to watch great games; instead they overhear a star player being blackmailed to throw the championship. The book introduces a pattern that runs through the series: adults with power cutting corners, and two kids trying to decide how much risk is worth taking to expose it.

Vanishing Act moves the action to the U.S. Open tennis tournament, where a young superstar disappears just before a match. The official story does not add up, and Stevie and Susan Carol find themselves navigating locker rooms, press conferences, and security details while trying to untangle a staged kidnapping from real danger.

In Cover-Up, the Super Bowl is the backdrop. Several players on a contending team have reportedly failed drug tests, but the story is buried to protect the league’s image. Working for a major newspaper and a TV network, the two teens uncover a doping scandal that powerful people will do almost anything to hide.

Change-up takes them to the World Series, where an anonymous pitcher with a tragic backstory suddenly becomes the story of the postseason. When details of his past do not match the public version, Stevie and Susan Carol dig into old police reports, small-town rumors, and the difference between a mistake and a lie.

In The Rivalry, the pair splits their time between Annapolis and West Point, covering the Army–Navy football game. Tension around the academies, the history of the rivalry, and questions about honor all feed into a plot that threatens to overshadow the game itself.

By Rush for the Gold, Susan Carol is no longer just covering sports; she is swimming in the Olympics. Agents, sponsors, and media executives begin treating her more like a product than a person, and Stevie, now reporting on her instead of alongside her, is the one who senses a new kind of danger.

Across all six books, readers get a mix of travelogue, locker room access, and newsroom scramble. The tone stays light enough for middle grade and early teen readers, but the stakes feel real: careers, reputations, and sometimes safety are on the line every time Stevie and Susan Carol choose a story over their own comfort.