{"id":4025,"date":"2015-02-19T06:32:56","date_gmt":"2015-02-19T11:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4025"},"modified":"2015-02-19T06:32:56","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T11:32:56","slug":"the-bad-news-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4025","title":{"rendered":"****The Bad News Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jerusalem\"

(photo: David Holt, Creative Commons license)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Anna Blundy <\/a>\u2013 Reading and reviewing classics like The Long Goodbye<\/em> or best-sellers like Mr. Mercedes<\/em> and trying to develop my own take on them is fun, but even more rewarding is discovering an author whose books have flown under the radar and bringing them to your attention! In that category, here\u2019s The Bad News Bible<\/em> (2004), published by Felony and Mayhem Press, a murder mystery set in the heart of Jerusalem, with all the dangers and dislocations thereunto. Ask Brian Williams.<\/p>\n

Perhaps because in real life her father was a British war correspondent, killed in El Salvador, Blundy made her protagonist a war correspondent, too. Faith Zanetti<\/a> is ensconced with a profane, chain-smoking, hard-drinking crowd of journalists with whom she\u2019s spent many dusty hours. Though they work in deadly dangerous places and though gallows humor is one way they stay sane, Faith doesn\u2019t expect murder to invade this close circle of colleagues and competitors. Reviewers have said Faith \u201cis a heroine who was waiting to be created,\u201d the one \u201cwe\u2019d love to be.\u201d Faith has been carried along by her courage and her cynical sense of humor into four more books after this one, first in the series.<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s title is what Faith\u2019s best friend calls the reams of advice the correspondents are given about staying safe in a war zone, information in stark contrast to the ever-present \u201cGood News Bible\u201d in their hotels\u2019 bedside table drawers. Faith has humor, sharp perceptions, and calls them as she sees them, exactly the traits needed to survive\u2014and Get the Story\u2014in her tricky situation. And Blundy\u2019s writing has the energy to carry it off.<\/p>\n

(If you order this book, make sure you buy the one by Anna Blundy. Another has the same title but is a different thing altogether!)
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