THE LAST SCOOP

5 stars out of 5

Having spent roughly 16 years in journalism prompted me to say yes to this book - the third in a series featuring journalist Clare Carlson (now a TV news director). I'm glad I did; I thoroughly enjoyed every single page.

That's not to say I identified well with Clare; two of my years was as a beat reporter for a daily and 14 came managing editor of a regional business journal. Unlike Clare, neither experience got me a Pulitzer, sorry to say, but then again, neither was I ever in much danger. The closest I ever came was when I was interviewing a pair of township trustees who clearly didn't like each other, and when one started to take a whack at the other I had to jump out of the way. For sure I never got death threats, nor was my life ever in danger because of any story I wrote.

Almost from the first page of this book - the third in the series - Clare is on shaky ground. When a long-time friend and mentor is murdered, she isn't willing to believe, as do the police, that it was a mugging gone wrong. That's mostly because shortly before his death, he met with Clare to tell her he was looking into goings-on that related to New York's current hot-shot District Attorney Terri Hartwell. 

Clare's TV boss isn't thrilled that she wants to delve into the situation to find out specifics about what her friend knew; but she's determined to get to the bottom of things, for the most part going off on her own. Meanwhile, Clare has a few personal "secrets" she'd rather not disclose - things that could derail her so-far stellar career. Her investigation takes her through a dark world of mob bosses, payoffs and yes, murder that go back to an unsolved murder many years ago in small-town Indiana (another plus for me, since I grew up not far from Indianapolis and Fort Wayne). In the end, everything comes to an exciting conclusion, most issues are resolved without, of course, Clare getting killed off (you really don't expect the heroine of a series to bite the dust, do you)?

All told (in first-person, by the way), I highly recommend this book. As always with a series, I'll also recommend starting with the first; but I have not, and I'm happy to say this one stands on its own just fine. Many thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review it.

The Last Scoop by R.G. Belsky (Oceanview Publishing, May 2020); 369 pp.