Dead Air

by Joe Lee

Beautiful young television anchor Shawn Forrest is found dead in her Jackson apartment, an apparent victim of foul play. Homicide detectives Jerome Washington and Tim McDaniel swiftly discover that although Shawn was adored on camera, she made her Channel Five colleagues miserable and was despised by them. Did one of them kill her? Or was it Shawn's husband, who is also in television and admits to an affair with a college student? Was it the fast-talking, drug-dealing bartender who admits he stalked Shawn and had a key to her apartment, or was she murdered at all? Even the medical examiner isn't sure. As Washington and McDaniel pursue their leads, Channel Five reporter Carolyn Davis does her own digging inside the newsroom. She uncovers crucial evidence, then finds a knife jammed into the front door of her house. Terrified that she's the next target, she confides in Washington and turns the investigation on its side. In the end, seven people are indicted by the ambitious district attorney, including murder charges filed against Shawn's husband. The stage is set for a highly-anticipated trial which attracts the attention of the national press, but a stunning series of events leaves the case against the husband in pieces and many questions about Shawn's death unanswered.

254 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up at the library because it was written by a local author. I was actually surprised that it was so good, don't know why but maybe because I had not heard of him before. It is ironic in the sense that the previous books I had read, a Christian thriller fiction series by Lynette Eason, had very few suspects but this book had an over-abundance of suspects. I almost had to write down the different characters in order to keep them straight but managed to sort them out.

I liked that he used names of local restaurants, local suburbs etc. in his writing and gave the reader an inside glance into the world of a local television station. He juggled a lot of balls in the air and seemed to handle them well. I would recommend this for readers who enjoy mystery fiction with a local twist.