When the disemboweled remains of Giggleswick’s goalkeeper are discovered on a west Yorkshire playing field, Paul Stark gets a call from an old rival: Come take the dead man’s place on the team. Stark — an American derisively known as the Yank — isn’t bothered by the club’s hundred-year history of footballing ineptitude, a haplessness that has earned it the nickname “the Laff Riots.” His own career has stalled, and he jumps at the chance for a restart.As he comes to grips with his new life in Giggleswick, Yank clashes with the Riot’s crooked owner and a cadre of xenophobic teammates, while befriending a crotchety groundskeeper, a punk-rock barista and a secretive Jill-of-all-trades for whom he develops an instant, catastrophic crush.As the clock counts down to the end of the season and a ruinous business deal, solving his predecessor’s murder is the only way Yank can save the Laff Riots. But once the murderer sets his sights on Stark, the goalkeeper has to save himself.

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