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Middle-aged Washington Tribune reporter Joe Wilcox is up for early retirement. He's been less than impressed with the state of journalism lately and has been unhappy with the final results of his life. Although he is happily married and his daughter Roberta is a shining new talent on the television news, he feels the new young lions in the newsroom breathing down his neck, laughing at his old-fashioned responsible style of reporting. When a beautiful young woman journalist is found dead, strangled in a supply closet of the Washington Tribune and then another newswoman is found strangled in a park nearby, Joe changes his old ideas for new ones and his creative reporting of the story breathes new life into his career. Edith Vargas-Swayze is a detective with the Violent Crimes Branch (read Homicide) of the Maryland Police Department and is called in when the body of the first woman is found dead at the Tribune. The city is outraged and Edith is doing all she can to gather information and clues, including getting in touch with an old friend Joe Wilcox, her connection to the fourth estate. For many years, the two have been sharing information and in the process, getting both their jobs done well. When another beautiful young female journalist is found dead in a park, also strangled, Joe supposes that a serial killer might be on the loose. The police don't agree, but in a change of the principles he has lived and reported under all his life, Joe places that bit of information in his column falsely reporting that his source was a high-ranking police person. His story hits page one and makes him a famous name again, and television and publishing houses are begging to speak to him. He finds himself getting more excited about his job than he has in years. And then his long-lost brother, Michael, contacts him. His brother had killed a girl when he was young and has spent the last 40 years in a mental hospital. Joe hadn't made any effort to keep in touch with Michael and has even kept the fact he had a brother a deep secret. Joe wonders why his brother shows up just then. Is it to harass him, to menace his family, or might he have something to do with the murders? Writer Margaret Truman has written something like 20 other novels and this is the first one I've read. There doesn't seem to be any continuing characters in her books other than they all happen in and around Washington, DC. This book stands on its own well and is clearly written. I just can't find a compelling reason to recommend it. The main character decries the fallen state of journalism but he crosses his own lines of responsible reporting with nary a moment's hesitation. In fact he makes a horrendous decision in one chapter but the character doesn't seem to care about the ramifications of what he's doing. There's a lot of discussion and stated opinions about the news media and the reality that it's mostly showbusiness nowadays, with no high-mindedness to serve the readers involved anymore. But at the end there's no consequence to any of the machinations that went on in the story. Everything simply finishes. The ending and the solution to the crimes aren't solved as much as the story just peters out. The flat last chapter wraps up all the questions and loose ends with no stress, no surprises and no excitement. I was disappointed in MURDER AT THE WASHINGTON TRIBUNE.
Reviewed by Sharon Katz, August 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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