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As the news industry collapses around us, reading John Darnton's satirical novel about a murder in a New York City newsroom is an exercise in nostalgia in more ways than one. Not only is the setting a fond evocation of a New York Times-style newspaper of the past (complete with a long-abandoned printing press in the basement that no longer rattles the windows at press time), the plot is a Golden Age-style puzzle in which the victim is unloved and the suspects numerous, all members of a tightly closed social circle of newsroom insiders with their petty rivalries and professional jealousies. The first body to fall is that of a much-loathed editor. The murders continue, investigated by the young reporter assigned to the story and by an attractive NYPD detective who isn't too happy about all the publicity. There's a huge cast, large enough that the reader longs for the old fashioned character list often supplied in mysteries of the era it evokes. The newsroom setting, though obviously rendered by an expert (the author is a veteran reporter for the New York Times) seems strangely dated. The web edition of the 'Globe' is a minor offshoot of the real paper (and in a pinch it can be run by a dozen nerds out of an apartment). One of the most vivid scenes is in the modern printing press that operates with mechanical "drones," but though there's some moaning about the state of the news industry, the characters' concerns are nothing compared to the all-too-real imminent disaster the news business faces. In both plot and setting I was reminded of Sayers' Murder Must Advertise, an insider glimpse at a workplace and an industry in a tone that's both arch and baroque, fond but sarcastic. The pacing is leisurely and the characters so numerous they can be hard to sort out, many of them mere sketches rather than fleshed out people. But perhaps that's the way it should be in a book that is both an hommage to the glory that was the newsroom and a light-hearted bagatelle.
Reviewed by Barbara Fister, September 2009
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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