The Sins of Heroes: A Novel of Football, Gambling and Love

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE FORCES OF FOOTBALL, GAMBLING AND LOVE COLLIDE IN A SMALL COLLEGE IN THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA.

The Sins of Heroes is the story of a college football coach who decides to deal with the big time pressures closing in on him—a rabid fan base, a demanding athletic director, and an angry bookie who needs to be paid—by crossing coaching's ethical Rubicon to fix his own team's games.

To pull off his elaborate plan, Coach Bud Frazier—seemingly a steadfast campus pillar and role model—recruits his star quarterback, who soon learns that winning a bet and winning a football game are goals that seldom intersect, especially when the fix is in. At the dark center of Frazier's crisis of conscience, it turns out, is a woman; he eventually discovers she has her own hidden agenda.

The Sins of Heroes follows the fortunes of the fictitious Deacons of Delta Southern University as they fight through a season that many have predicted will go all the way to a national championship. Little does anyone know, behind the scenes, Frazier is playing a very different game, one he hopes will not only save his soul,  but also earn him the respect he feels he's due.

 Early Praise for The Sins of Heroes:

"With the rise of legal sports betting, a major gambling scandal feels inevitable. Bill Bryant's new book goes straight to that danger zone, telling a cautionary tale of an old coach and a gifted young quarterback who've teamed up to bet their reputations on the bounce of a ball, a roll of the dice. This book feels prophetic—sooner or later, you'll read what's here as fiction in a screaming real-world headline. You don't need a crystal ball to know what it will be like. You just need Bryant's The Sins of Heroes."

                                     —Charles McNair, author of The Epicureans and Pickett's Charge

"Bill Bryant can spin a story with the best of them, and make sure readers meet, get to know, and care about the real-people characters he creates in the process. The Sins of Heroes is executed about as well as a winning scoring play in the final minute of a big game. And the pacing is just as impressive. is simply a good story, well told."

—Don Keith, author/co-author of more than 40 books

"Bill Bryant always has been a wonderful and diligent writer, dating all the way back to his days as a young sports writer in Georgia, and he's at the top of his game in his new book, The Sins of Heroes. Bryant tells a compelling tale that, albeit fictional, is particularly relevant and thought-provoking amid the recent surge of legalized sports betting across the country. He deserves a first-team position on your reading list for football season."

—Tim Tucker, former sportswriter, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"The Sins of Heroes is a sports book that does what all good sports books do. It dives deeper than the games played on fields and in arenas to examine individual struggles for respect, redemption, and in this case, love. Bill Bryant's first work of fiction will resonate not only with die-hard college football fans, but anyone who enjoys pulling for a cast of characters who are both supremely gifted and tragically flawed."    

—Lindy Keane Carter, author of The Irish Visitor, The Rice Birds, Annaliese From Off