There has been a noticeable increase in the number of broadcast crime and investigative reporter mysteries of late.
Michael A. Black and Julie Hyzy have brought their respective series detectives P.I. Ron Shade and TV reporter Alex St. James together in Dead Ringer. The two are working on separate cases, told in alternating chapters, which eventually merge into one massive case of fraud and murder which they must work in tandem to solve.
Julie Kramer’s debut mystery Stalking Susan introduces Riley Spartz, a Twin Cities investigative TV journalist. On the come-back trail after a personal tragedy – the death of her police officer husband – had sidelined her career, Riley takes on two cold cases, each involving a murdered woman named Susan. As her investigation proceeds she uncovers other cases that fit the same pattern, and she finds reason to believe that the killer could be a cop. Kramer is a freelance news producer for the Today Show and Dateline.
Even the British detectives are showing up on the telly. Real-life BBC crime correspondent Simon Hall has created fictional TV crime reporter Dan Groves who becomes involved in the death of painter who is murdered after he creates a series of ten paintings containing a mysterious riddle. PW called The Death Pictures “a complex, modern, cunning murder mystery with a behind-the-scenes taste of a TV news reporter.”
My favorite sleuthing TV reporter is Charlotte “Charlie” McNally, “Boston's own version of Brenda Starr,” the creation of veteran Boston NBC investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan, winner of 24 Emmys and multiple Edward R. Murrow Awards for reporting and writing. No one was surprised when Hank won an Agatha for Best First Novel for Prime Time, the first title in the series.
And let us not forget the stalwart newspaper journalist detectives.
Award-winning journalist Christine Barber’s first mystery, The Replacement Child, was the winner of the Tony Hillerman Prize for Best Debut Mystery. After editor Lucy Newroe takes a call from the notorious Scanner Lady, an anonymous tipster who phones in what she overhears on her police scanner, the woman is found dead. Lucy enlists the help of police detective Gil Montoya, who is working on the case of a seventh-grade teacher whose body was thrown off a bridge. As with Ron Shade and Alex St. James, Lucy and Gil come to find their cases intertwined with links between the two murders that run deeper than they could ever have imagined.
Shot Girl, the fourth Annie Seymour mystery from Karen E. Olson, has just hit the shelves. New Haven police reporter Annie has a talent for running into trouble. Her co-worker's bachelorette party at a local club turns into a crime scene and the dead bar manager on the sidewalk outside happens to be Annie's ex-husband — and the bullet shells around his body match the gun she has in her car.
By the way, Annie will be on extended leave from the newsroom while author Olson begins a new series featuring a Vegas tattoo artist. The Missing Ink is expected sometime in July. Stay tuned for more details.
