{"id":9058,"date":"2021-06-21T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9058"},"modified":"2021-06-20T20:17:37","modified_gmt":"2021-06-21T00:17:37","slug":"beyond-the-headlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9058","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Headlines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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RG Belsky\u2019s Clare Carlson series may technically fit in the \u2018amateur detective\u2019 category, because Clare is a New York City television news director, not a police officer or FBI agent, but her skill at getting to the truth doesn\u2019t take a back seat to anyone\u2019s. There may be delays, detours, and false starts, but she gets there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Belsky\u2019s latest book, his fourth in the Clare Carlson series, she\u2019s again not content to assign the big story of the day to her reporters, she\u2019s on the case herself. Clare\u2019s best friend tips her off that mega-celebrity and Vietnamese immigrant Laurie Bateman wants to divorce her wealthy older husband, Charles Hollister. Bateman wants Clare to tell her story on-air. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is shocking news, because the couple maintains a super-happy public image, but when Clare arrives at the Batemans\u2019 apartment building, the street is filled with police. Hollister is dead, and Bateman is accused of killing him. Clare witnesses her would-be interviewee driven away in a squad car. Still, the murder is breaking news, and she has the story first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turns out, quite a few people might have wanted Hollister dead: his son, who believes himself short-changed in his father\u2019s will, disgruntled business people he\u2019s trodden upon, his mistress, her jealous husband. The police and prosecutor are not interested in any of these possibilities. They have the wife in a Riker\u2019s Island cell, and tunnel vision keeps them focused on her. When Clare finally does get to speak with Bateman, the woman maintains her innocence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Clare\u2019s interview with Bateman is televised, it opens a floodgate of public support, just as cracks appear in the prosecution\u2019s case. Before long, Bateman is a free woman again and credits Clare with getting her out of jail. It was a big story, rewarding even, but Clare starts to have doubts. Had she just managed to set a murderer free?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The puzzle aspects of this book are nicely intriguing, and Belsky writes with a lot of narrative energy and humor. He also writes with authenticity and conviction on various aspects of the news business and about his Manhattan setting. The new well of experience he draws on for this book is his military experience in Vietnam, before the war began its slow wind-down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When investigating a crime, Clare leads with her strength, conducting smart interviews. Her news stories are not police procedurals, and there\u2019s not a lot of attention to CSI-type details. However, here, I thought some gaps needed filling. There was such a rush to arrest Laurie, why no gunshot residue test on her and her clothing? When it appears the killer may have had access to the apartment the evening before the body was found, what had the coroner established as time-of-death? Belsky recognizes this hole and patches it with a throwaway statement about the medical examiner\u2019s uncertainty. Not quite good enough. These are investigative touchstones that Clare, with her experience, would presumably be asking about herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, when it comes to the central aspects of the story\u2014the motives and behavior of a long list of iffy characters, each of them having their own secrets\u2014Belsky excels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Order here from Amazon<\/a>. Or, Shop your local indie bookstore<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RG Belsky\u2019s Clare Carlson series may technically fit in the \u2018amateur detective\u2019 category, because Clare is a New York City television news director, not a police officer or FBI agent, but her skill at getting to the truth doesn\u2019t take … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Beyond the Headlines - RG Belsky's new Clare Carlson mystery is his best yet! Has Clare engineered freedom for a possible murderer?","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1335,52,366,40,1821,126],"tags":[1870,580],"class_list":["post-9058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amateur-detective","category-crime","category-drama","category-fiction","category-humor","category-reading-2","tag-beyond-the-headlines","tag-rg-belsky"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2m6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9060,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9058\/revisions\/9060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}