Paper Man

The Bush Capital #2

by Peter Menadue

A Cabinet Minister is murdered, Parliament House is in uproar and political newshound Paul Ryder is busy trying to sleep with a sexy TV reporter. Soon he’s on the trail of the scoop of a lifetime. All he has to do is survive the media moguls, political fixers, spooks, cops and fellow reporters who stand in his way. A fast-paced comic crime novel.

231 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 15, 2011

About the author

Peter Menadue was a non-award winning print journalist before studying law at Sydney University and Oxford University. For the last twenty years he has practiced as a barrister in Sydney, Australia. He also writes courtroom novels under the pseudonym "Mark Dryden"

Reviews

[MGB · Rating 2 out of 5]

Paul Ryder is all of the bad things you can imagine in a journalist for a paper. He can't keep a promise. He can't control his sexual drive. He thinks all politicians are fools, knaves and sex maniacs as so described by his mentor. He seems to just bumble around more than have a directed approach to reporting on the important stories he gets.

He eventually solves the crime, gets minimal thanks for it, and goes unemployed. Not an uplifting story.

[Balthazar Lawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The murder of a minister starts Paul Ryder on the investigative trail as he tries to find out who the culprit is. Of course it's never that simple and he runs up against the powerful, politically and business, putting his work and life at risk. At the same time his personal life takes a huge turn that makes things not so comfortable for him.

It's a good read but oh so similar to the previous book in the series. Almost as if both books were following a formula, and following it very closely.