|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
Lucy Stone is ecstatic at the news her boss, editor Ted Stillings, brings -- the little paper Pennysaver has been chosen as "Community Newspaper of the Year in Category Five, Circulation Less than Five Thousand." The award includes a grant for an all expenses paid (within reason) trip from Tinker's Cove, Maine to Boston to pick up the award at the Northeast Newspaper Association Conference. Lucy wrestles with her conscience about leaving her family of husband Bill, son Toby, and daughters, Elizabeth, Sara, and Zoe. There's laundry to be done, meals to be cooked, a crisis with the family dog, who regularly gets into a neighbor's yard and makes off with a chicken. Guilt. But then there's almost a week of NO laundry to be done, NO meals to be cooked, NO crisis to referee. Freedom. Freedom wins, and Lucy boards the bus to Boston. An additional incentive is that Lucy's piece on the fishing industry has been nominated for an award in the area of investigative journalism. Even before she checks into the hotel, Lucy is caught in the maelstrom of the newspaper publishing world. Junior Read introduces her to his father Luther (both summer tenants of Tinker's Cove), head of the Pioneer Press group and about to be named Newspaperman of the Year at the conference banquet. Lucy wishes that her husband and son could have the kind of obvious affection that Junior and his father share. However, soon Lucy learns of a major rift between the two. Luther, Sr. is determined to hold on to Pioneer Press, despite the fact that only one paper in the chain, the one in Northampton, Massachusetts, run by his lesbian daughter, is making a profit. Junior wants to sell Pioneer Press to a conglomerate to raise money to start his own magazine in Connecticut. At the banquet, Luther, Sr. goes to the Men's Room, followed by Junior. When Luther turns up dead, the first thought by all is that Junior substituted an empty inhaler for Luther's asthma inhaler and caused his father's death. Later, it is determined that Luther ingested poison, but Junior remains a suspect. Lucy doesn't believe that Junior is guilty. In her pursuit of the truth, she indulges in a little breaking and entering of the room of the always drunken editor of the Hartford paper, a man she suspects until the very end. On the home front, things aren't going well, as Lucy learns through several phone calls. Toby and husband Bill have had screaming fights. Toby (underage) and Lucy's boss's son (also underage) went on a drinking spree. The dog has caught another chicken, and the neighbor insists that there be a hearing before the police. The kids are worried that Lucy won't get home in time to buy the vodka for Bill's traditional Father's Day Bloody Mary. When the culprit is revealed, the reader realizes how carefully Meier has laid out clues we could have grasped. Lucy is a very likable character, although perhaps a tad naive for someone who's been a journalist -- even a small town journalist. Two characters who are underused are Lucy's editor and Luther's lady friend from Vermont, who is running for senator. The plot moves along briskly, with just enough detail about the panels Lucy attends at the conference, and which, like most conference panels, are totally useless. Readers will have to determine whether the abundant information about Boston is a plus or a distraction. Personally, I loved it. Like Lucy, I can't understand why people go to Durgin Park to be bullied by the waitresses. Meier gets just one thing wrong. Lucy gets into a cab, and the driver knows exactly where her destination is and how to get there. Not bloody likely, as they say.
Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Devine, March 0100
This book has more than one review. Click here to show all.
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
