Liam Mulligan, investigative
reporter for The Providence Dispatch
newspaper has come a long way since June 1992. Back then he was a young
reporter working the sports beat who, by the luck of the draw and the fact that
no one else was available, was forced into helping cover from the start one of
the worst murder cases in the history of Rhode Island. A case that ultimately
resulted in the very justified conviction of a killer who is definitively going
to kill again if he ever gets out.
In the spring of 2012 that
release is looking more and more likely. Not only is the killer going to get
out, Mulligan probably will see that happen very soon as well as the death of
his employer, The Providence Dispatch. Newspapers
are a dying industry thanks to a population that either reads online or doesn't
read at all. Mulligan knows the end is near every time he walks into the nearly
empty newsroom and considers all the empty workstations, but looking for a new
job isn't a high priority right now. Mulligan instead is focused on the case
and the huge ethical dilemma it has created. It seems increasingly clear that prison
officials were fabricating charges to keep the killer behind bars beyond his
original sentence because the laws passed by the legislature were never ever
designed to handle this unique situation. If prison officials really could make
up charges and did so the obvious implication is that they could do it again
with somebody else. Where does the public’s all-encompassing right to know
about corruption and other matters fit into this situation? Beyond the thorny
issue of what they did, if it did happen and Mulligan and possibly other
reporters write about it, all heck is going to break loose with the most likely
result in a killer being released to kill again. A killer who, no doubt, is far
smarter about how to do what he wants to do without getting caught than when he
went in all those years ago.
Inspired by two famous Rhode
Island murder cases, Providence Rag: A Liam Mulligan Novel
is the third book in the very good Liam Mulligan series. While Mulligan is
getting older and maybe wiser---through that is questionable--- he is certainly
more and more aware of the fact that he is the last of his breed in a dying
industry. The obvious question as to who is going to expose corrupt politicians
and flawed government actions when newspapers are gone is one that comes up
again here as well as the ethics in reporting all that one knows about a
situation.
This latest in the series is
another good one from author Bruce DeSilva. Shifting in time from various dates
in 1989 to 2012 the complicated read features further development of many characters
as well as an illustrative history of what is being lost as the newspaper
industry dies before our eyes. The world has changed a lot in those years and
readers are reminded of those changes as the book works its way through and increasingly
suspenseful situation on various fronts. Based on real life events with names
and other details fictionalized Providence Rag: A Liam Mulligan novel, like
the preceding two books Rogue Island and Cliff
Walk, is absolutely well worth your time.
Providence
Rag: A Liam Mulligan Novel
Bruce
DeSilva
Forge
(A Tom Doherty Associates Book)
March
2014
ISBN
#978-0-7653-7429-5
Hardback
(also available in e-book)
304
Pages
$25.99
ARC was provided by the author for my use in an
objective review.
Bruce DeSilva was a participant in the Sunday Sample series here on the blog back in February and you can read his piece here if you are so inclined.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2014
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