Book Details:
Published by: Oceanview Publishing
Publication Date: January 2, 2024
Number of Pages: 320
ISBN: 9781608095315 (ISBN10: 1608095312)
Series: Clare Carlson Mystery Series, 6 | All of the novels in the Clare Carlson Mystery Series stand on their own and can be read in any order
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Wendy Kyle took secrets to her grave—now, Clare Carlson is digging them up
New York City has no shortage of crime, making for a busy schedule for TV newswoman Clare Carlson. But not all crimes are created equal, and when an explosive planted in a car detonates and kills a woman, Clare knows it'll be a huge story for her.
But it's not only about the story—Clare also wants justice for the victim, Wendy Kyle. Wendy had sparked controversy as an NYPD officer, ultimately getting kicked off the force after making sexual harassment allegations and getting into a physical altercation with her boss. Then, she started a private investigations business, catering to women who suspected their husbands of cheating. Undoubtedly, Wendy had angered many people with her work, so the list of her suspected murderers is seemingly endless.
Despite the daunting investigation, Clare dives in headfirst. As she digs deeper, she attracts the attention of many rich and powerful people who will stop at nothing to keep her from breaking the truth about the death of Wendy Kyle—and exposing their personal secrets that Wendy took to her grave.
From the Diary of Wendy Kyle….
If you’re reading this, I’m already dead.
How’s that for an attention-grabbing opening line?
I know, I know...it’s a bit melodramatic. And I’m not normally the melodramatic type. Really. No, Wendy Kyle is the kind of woman who deals in facts for a living, the kind of woman who doesn’t let emotion cloud her judgment and - maybe most importantly of all - the kind of woman who never blindly puts her trust in anyone.
Especially a man.
Hey, I’m not some man-hating bitch or anything like that, no matter what you may have heard or think about me. I like men. I love men, or at least I’ve loved a few men in my life. It’s just that I don’t trust them anymore.
So wouldn’t it be ironic - or maybe a little bit fitting, to look at it completely objectively - if trusting a man this one time was what wound up costing me my own life in the end.
Here’s the bottom line for me: If I don’t succeed in what I’m about to do in the Ronald Bannister case, well...then it is important someone knows the truth about what happened to me.
And that it was the lies - all of the damn lies men have told - that were the death of me.
----- The contents of this document were among evidence
seized by homicide detectives from the office of
Wendy Kyle Heartbreaker Investigations
218 West 42nd Street
New York City
This entry is listed as: POLICE EXHIBIT A
Opening Credits
THE RULES, ACCORDING TO CLARE
Nora O’Donnell is 50 years old. Samantha Guthrie 51. Hoda Kotb 58, Robin Roberts 62 and Gayle King 68.
The point I’m trying to make here is that TV newscasters - specifically women TV newscasters - don’t have to be cute, perky young talking heads to succeed in the media world where I work.
We’ve come a long way since the days when a respected newswoman like Jane Pauley was replaced by the younger Deborah Norville on the Today show because some network executive (a middle-aged man, of course!) decided Pauley was getting too old to appeal to a television audience.
Or when an anchorwoman named Christine Craft lost her job at a station in Kansas City after a focus group determined she was “too old, too unattractive and not deferential to men.” She was 37.
Well, 50 is the new 40 now.
Or maybe even the new 30.
And let’s get something straight right up front here. I’m not one of those women who normally gets stressed out over every birthday that passes by or every wrinkle on my face or every gray hair or two I spot in the mirror. That is not me. No way. I’m not hung up about age at all.
But I am about to turn 50 this year.
The big 5-0.
The half-century mark.
And the truth is I’m having a bit of trouble dealing with that…
My name is Clare Carlson, and I’m the news director of Channel 10 News in New York City. I’m also an on-air reporter for our Channel 10 news show, and I’ve broken some pretty big exclusives in recent years that have gotten me a lot of attention and made me kind of a media star.
But this whole business of turning 50 still seems odd to me.
When I was in my 20s, I was a star reporter at a newspaper and won a Pulitzer Prize. In my 30s, after the newspaper went out of business, I switched to TV news at Channel 10. And in my 40s, I’ve been juggling two jobs: TV executive as the station’s news director and also as an on-air personality breaking big stories.
Turning 30 and then 40 never really seemed like that big a deal for me. It was more fun than tragic. Look at me: I’m 40! But 50? I’m not so sure about that one. 50 is something completely different, at least the way I see it at the moment. I’m not sure where I go with my life after 50.
It couldn’t be happening at a worse time for me either.
Channel 10, the TV station where I work, is being sold to a new owner - and this has left everyone in our newsroom worried about what might happen next. My latest boss and I don’t get along, and I’m afraid she might be looking for a reason to fire me. My personal life situation is even worse. I’ve been married three times (all of them ending in divorce), and right now I’m not in any kind of a relationship. I have a daughter, but she didn’t even know I was her mother for the first 25 years or so of her life - so we don’t exactly have a traditional mother/daughter relationship.
The only constant in my life - the one thing that I always turn to for comfort when my life is in turmoil - is the news.
This newsroom at Channel 10 where I work is my true home.
My sanctuary.
And so each day I wrap it - along with all the people in it and the stories we cover - around me like a security blanket to protect myself from everything else that is going on around me.
All I needed now was a big story to chase.
The bigger the better.
That’s what I was looking for right now.
But as the old saying goes: Be careful what you wish for – because you just might get it.
And that’s what happened to me with the Wendy Kyle murder…
R.G. Belsky is an award-winning author of crime fiction and a journalist in New York City. His newest mystery, BROADCAST BLUES, was published on January 2 by Oceanview. It is the sixth in a series featuring Clare Carlson, the news director for a New York City TV station. The first book, Yesterday’s News, was named Best Mystery of 2018 at Deadly Ink. The second, Below the Fold, won the Foreward INDIES award for Best Mystery of 2019. Belsky has published 20 novels—all set in the New York city media world where he has had a long career as a top editor at the New York Post, New York Daily News, Star magazine and NBC News. He also writes thrillers under the name Dana Perry. And he is a contributing writer for The Big Thrill magazine and BookTrib.
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