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Loading... Black and White and Dead All Overby John Darnton
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  GerryD8784 | Oct 6, 2009 |  An elaborate satirical mystery about a New York Times-style broadsheet that has a spate of inside murders, starting with a much-loathed editor. Includes fond insider newsroom shtick, some vivid descriptions of retired technology and the new printing press (which is automated with 'drones'), and a cast of thousands. Though it's not an old book, it seems strangely dated - the web edition of the 'Globe' is a fringe element of the real paper (and in a pinch can be run by a dozen nerds out of an apartment), there some moaning about the state of the news industry but it's nothing compared to the the current all-too-real imminent disaster. To add to the slightly anachronistic story elements and the Golden Age plotting (I was reminded of Sayers' Murder Must Advertise) the style is both arch and baroque, likened by a Times reviewer not inaccurately to a mix of Christie and Hiassen but to me reminiscent of Trollope in his most sarcastic and panoramic mode. The pacing seemed a tad tortoise-like and the number of characters was hard to sort out, many of them more character actors than fleshed out people. But perhaps that's the way it should be in a book that is both an hommage to the glory that was the newsroom and a light-hearted bagatelle. bfister | Aug 21, 2009 | I didn't do right by this book, reading it in 15 minute bursts as I dropped off to sleep. It was a lot funnier than I was able to properly appreciate since I was half asleep through too much of it, coming to as the book crashed down - again - on my nose. Fun newspaper stuff! (  ) camcleod | Apr 27, 2009 | I really enjoyed the first half of this book. Had fun reading about the inner machinations of a newspaper, reporting, and all that. But it dragged. The mystery wasn't all that good. The red herrings were obvious. And the characters--and their names--were so much a slapstick caricature it was difficult to take much of it seriously. A food critique named "Outsalot"? Obviously was referring to someone the author nicknamed Eatsalot. The crazy names--Peregrine Whiddebly, Priscilla Bollingsworth, etc. never stopped and became a distraction. Calling the rival paper the "Maul" instead of the "Mail" served no purpose, except maybe so that people didn't think it was a real paper, or real publisher. But the veil was awfully thin. Second half dragged under its own weight. (  ) fleagirl | Jan 14, 2009 | John Darnton was a reporter, editor and foreign correspondent for the NY Times for 40years so he knows the newspaper business. He puts that knowledge and history to work in this whodunit about a reporter named Jude Hurley who works for the New York Globe and helps solve the gruesome murders that occur at his newspaper. He describes the modern problems that plague newspapers today (due to the Internet, 24 hour news stations, public interest in scandal and the lack of attention span in the general populace) and their resulting cost cuts and changes that effect newspaper quality. But this is not what Jude sets out to solve. A powerful editor is found murdered in the newsroom, with the spike that he’d wielded to kill stories hammered into his chest. He is soon followed by others killed in symbolic ways too. Policewoman Priscilla Bollingsworth comes on the scene to investigate but she needs an insider's help to navigate the newspaper world and Jude Hurley is her man. Together they cull through the clues and solve the mystery. I really enjoyed this book and didn't put it down until I finished it. Darnton made some fun with the newspaper world such as the character "Dinah Outsalot", the food editor and some insider jokes and pokes. He also described the newspaper world and some of it's history without lecturing. He does have some bad language. Maybe it's what he's used to in that environment but it wasn't something I thought was necessary. Otherwise it would have been a good book to recommend for anyone. (  ) Mom25dogs | Jan 11, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
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| Book description |
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A keenly intelligent, delightfully mordant novel that blends fact and fiction with the same deft hand that was at work in John Darnton’s best-selling Neanderthal.
Bad news is brewing in the inner sanctum of the New York Globe, the city’s long-standing newspaper of note, whose back is to the wall. Readership, advertising, and circulation are plummeting—along with the paper’s vaunted standards—and the cost cutters have their knives out. But trouble of a wholly different kind begins one rainy September morning when a powerful editor is found murdered in the newsroom, with the spike that he’d wielded to kill stories hammered into his chest. The problem for Priscilla Bollingsworth, the young, ambitious female NYPD detective assigned to the case—besides the fact that the mayor is breathing down her neck—is that there are too many suspects to choose from.
She teams up with Jude Hurley, a clever, rebellious reporter, and together they navigate the ink-infested waters whose denizens include the paper’s resentful old guard, scheming careerists, a bumbling publisher, a steely executive editor, and a rival newspaper tycoon named Lester Moloch. But the waters thicken considerably when more bodies turn up, dead all over.
Armed with the firsthand knowledge he has acquired through forty years in journalism, John Darnton conjures up the cynicism and romanticism of the profession and gives us a cunning, pitch-perfect portrait of the declining—if not yet murderous—newspaper industry. Black and White and Dead All Over is a satirical mystery that entertains from first to last.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:18 -0400)
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Wikipedia in English
A feared and hated editor at the New York Globe turns up dead, a mocking note pinned to his chest with an editor’s spike. His colleagues are shocked, certainly, but they’ll be damned if they’re going to let the competition scoop them. Up-and-coming iconoclast Jude Hurley gets the story and soon finds himself navigating a labyrinth of personalities and politics—and covering more killings, too. Few professionals embrace their own mythology quite like journalists, and the Pulitzer Prize–winning Darnton, a writer for the New York Times, clearly has ink under his fingernails. But though this rollicking newsroom farce pays homage to the fabled Front Page, there’s no clatter of typewriters here. Indeed, much of the tension is derived from the real-life troubles facing the newspaper industry today: declining readership and revenue, competition from the Web, and so on. And the basement that once housed the paper’s mighty printing press is now dark and empty, a perfect place for murder. Anyone drawn to the hubbub of journalism will enjoy this very funny mystery. --Keir Graff (