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Workplace Mystery #3
We Interrupt This Broadcast
Alice Jordan's dentist husband has just run off with his hygienist and she is desperate for a job. Because Alice has done some volunteer work for the symphony, she manages to talk herself into a job as a commissioned ad rep for a Seattle classical music station. The station was kept alive by its wealthy owner for many years, but her heirs are fighting about the future of the station. KLEG is so mismanaged that Aliceis predecessor Joe Costello hadnit even bothered to resign. He just disappeared and no one, including his unhappy wife, found it odd that he just drifted away. Cryptic messages had been left on his answering machine and his few accounts had been neglected. A week into the job, Joeis body is found inside a convertible sofa in a storage area. Alice finds that Joeis death by misadventure is only the beginning of the mystery."
- GenresMystery
ebook
First published January 1, 2001
3 people are currently reading
50 people want to read
About the author
K.K. Beck
29 books26 followersKathrine Kristine Beck Marris (born 1950), known mainly by her pen name of K. K. Beck, is an American novelist. She has written over a dozen books, some of which were part of the Iris Cooper novel series and the Jane da Silva novel series.
An early novel of hers, Death of a Prom Queen (1984) was written under the pen name of Marie Oliver. She wrote a series of other novels, under the name K. K. Beck, such as The Revenge of Kali-Ra in 1999. One of her most recent works, The Tell-Tale Tattoo and Other Stories (2002) is a collection of short stories.
She lives in Seattle, Washington, and was married to the crime-writer Michael Dibdin, who died in 2007.
Series:
* Iris Cooper
* Jane Da Silva
An early novel of hers, Death of a Prom Queen (1984) was written under the pen name of Marie Oliver. She wrote a series of other novels, under the name K. K. Beck, such as The Revenge of Kali-Ra in 1999. One of her most recent works, The Tell-Tale Tattoo and Other Stories (2002) is a collection of short stories.
She lives in Seattle, Washington, and was married to the crime-writer Michael Dibdin, who died in 2007.
Series:
* Iris Cooper
* Jane Da Silva
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
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August 7, 2011This was offered as a special by the Sony e-book. KK Beck was married to Michael Dibden who wrote the Aurelio Zen Mysteries. This was a hilarious murder mystery which takes place in a dying AM Classical station peopled with misfits and crazies. It reminds me of the Stephanie Plum books or Hiaasan. A quick read, 2-3 hours on a Sunday afternoon.
February 5, 2009
Mayhem at a low rated Seattle AM classical music radio station. A couple of murders involving a radio station in which every employee is pretty much a disfunctional character in a story filled with slightly off beat people.
March 17, 2016
Mystery at the am classical station. Funny!
April 12, 2024
So, I judged this book by its cover. Hey, we all do it, homilies notwithstanding. I imagined a murder mystery set in a radio station in the 1940s, perhaps unfolding during a live broadcast--the scream of the murder victim coincides with the scream of a fictitious victim in a radio play, that kind of thing. That's not what this is. (It might be the plot of the 1994 comedy The Radioland Murders, but I wouldn't know--I haven't seen it.)
THIS book was published in 1997, and the setting is contemporary. The plot takes on white supremacists, illegal immigration, prostitution rings, child pornography, and so forth. Some of these darker elements work against the "quirky" tone of the humor, but maybe in the late '90s it was easier to laugh off neo-Nazis.
While some of the elements have aged poorly, however, there is also a quaint charm to the story of an AM radio station staffed by eccentrics trying to keep things running smoothly as the station's sordid history catches up with it. Characters send urgent messages via fax machine, DJs resist the "upgrade" from vinyl to CDs, the protagonist's teenage son begs for his own phone line--these time-capsule items now carry a glossy sheen of nostalgia. And it doesn't hurt that the action takes place in Seattle, which of course puts me in mind of Frasier.
The biggest problem with the book is that it lacks confidence in its weirdos. I would have been a lot more interested if the strange ensemble running the radio station were the focus, but instead Beck feels the need to hedge her bets and insert an "everywoman" (read: boring) protagonist in single mother Alice and a grumpy station manager in Franklin, a straight-laced lawyer who despises the employees of the station he's trying desperately to sell because they're, like, nerds about classical music and passionate about what they do. Franklin spends the whole time vindictively sending out memos trying to shame his employees into shaping up--meaning "be more like lawyers and less like fruity artists"--and I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be on his side, temper tantrums notwithstanding. This is the kind of book where I'd like to be certain Beck loves her strange characters, but sometimes it feels like she's laughing at them rather than with them. The ending, where , left me rolling my eyes.
Still, I give Beck points for writing a book in the late '90s wherein a .
THIS book was published in 1997, and the setting is contemporary. The plot takes on white supremacists, illegal immigration, prostitution rings, child pornography, and so forth. Some of these darker elements work against the "quirky" tone of the humor, but maybe in the late '90s it was easier to laugh off neo-Nazis.
While some of the elements have aged poorly, however, there is also a quaint charm to the story of an AM radio station staffed by eccentrics trying to keep things running smoothly as the station's sordid history catches up with it. Characters send urgent messages via fax machine, DJs resist the "upgrade" from vinyl to CDs, the protagonist's teenage son begs for his own phone line--these time-capsule items now carry a glossy sheen of nostalgia. And it doesn't hurt that the action takes place in Seattle, which of course puts me in mind of Frasier.
The biggest problem with the book is that it lacks confidence in its weirdos. I would have been a lot more interested if the strange ensemble running the radio station were the focus, but instead Beck feels the need to hedge her bets and insert an "everywoman" (read: boring) protagonist in single mother Alice and a grumpy station manager in Franklin, a straight-laced lawyer who despises the employees of the station he's trying desperately to sell because they're, like, nerds about classical music and passionate about what they do. Franklin spends the whole time vindictively sending out memos trying to shame his employees into shaping up--meaning "be more like lawyers and less like fruity artists"--and I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be on his side, temper tantrums notwithstanding. This is the kind of book where I'd like to be certain Beck loves her strange characters, but sometimes it feels like she's laughing at them rather than with them. The ending, where , left me rolling my eyes.
Still, I give Beck points for writing a book in the late '90s wherein a .
June 20, 2018
Quirky mystery story about a low-power AM radio station in Seattle playing classical music for a shrinking audience. Filled with an overabundance of weird characters more at home in Portland than Seattle, the tale bounces from one absurdity to the next and though tasteless at times and dated, is a hoot to read. Imagine - sending a fax instead of an email or text message. The dark ages.
February 19, 2025
Every single character is ridiculous
September 26, 2012
Okay, short & sweet..it was okay & I always enjoy KK Beck, but it is not up among her best, which are truly outstanding. I liked it because of her wit more than the mystery, which wasn;t much of one, but some good moments and I am a fan of hers.
April 8, 2015
Interesting setting, convincing dialogue and well paced.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews