Showing posts with label Reporter Carter Ross series. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reporter Carter Ross series. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Crime Time : FACES OF THE GONE – Brad Parks
Crime Time : FACES OF THE GONE – Brad Parks: Investigative reporter Carter Ross is trapped on the fifteenth floor of a [Newark] office building, having unlocked the secrets of a major ...
Thursday, November 05, 2015
Review: "The Fraud: A Carter Ross Mystery" by Brad Parks
The latest in the Carter
Ross Mystery series finds investigative reporter Carter Ross nervously
awaiting the birth of his first child. Thirty-three years old he is the
investigative reporter for The Newark
Eagle- Examiner. With more than a decade on the journalism beat, Carter
Ross is all too aware that the newspaper industry is in crisis.
So too is the city of Newark, New
Jersey, in some ways. Carjacking has always been a problem primarily because of
the ease of access to the nearby port where a vehicle could easily disappear
into a cargo container on an ocean bound ship. Such a common occurrence that
the locals know not to stop for a red light in the middle of the night. A white bank executive, Kevin Tieymeyer, seems
to have forgotten that while driving his Jaguar. He is now dead as a result of
the latest carjacking. Local media is all over the story and his paper has to
cover it as well while also giving readers something different than what they
are seeing on television or hearing on the radio.
His editor, Tina Thompson, (also the
mother of his child to be) wants him to cover the story as well as expand the
reporting. Kevin Tiemeyer isn’t the only
one to recently lose his life in a carjacking. Being rich and while does not
mean his story is more important than the story of another victim and his
grieving family. Carter Ross has a recent carjacking murder victim in mind and
intends to develop backgrounds on the people involved in both cases and
illustrate how economics and race does not play a role in being a victim.
That is if he can get the families
and friends of the recently deceased to cooperate and he is allowed to focus on
the story. That is if he isn’t sent off to do a feel good piece on a local
charity. That is if Tina will keep him fully updated as to how the baby and her
are doing by actually sharing information and not walling him off as is her
tendency. Tina and Carter have a complicated relationship and have had for
several books. Having a baby is not going to uncomplicated it.
What began with the award winning Faces of the Gone is still powerfully good four more books later. Complicated
mysteries coupled with Carter Ross’ occasional cynical humor and observations
on life as well as his life’s work make this series well worth the reading.
While one could easily start here with The Fraud a lot of the nuance and
side joke humor would be lost. Instead, work your way up from the beginning and
get here when you can. It will be worth it.
The Fraud: A Carter Ross Mystery
Brad Parks
http://www.bradparksbooks.com/
Thomas Dunne Books (Minotaur Books)
http://thomasdunnebooks.com/
2015
ISBN# 978-1-250-06440-0
Hardback
352 Pages
$25.99
Material provided by the good folks of the Plano, Texas Public Library System.
Thomas Dunne Books (Minotaur Books)
http://thomasdunnebooks.com/
2015
ISBN# 978-1-250-06440-0
Hardback
352 Pages
$25.99
Material provided by the good folks of the Plano, Texas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2015
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
Monday, July 06, 2015
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Reviewing: "Faces Of The Gone" by Brad Parks
Newark, New Jersey has seen senseless killings before. But, the latest is a new low and one made to order for media sensationalism. Four victims, each shot in the head, are left on public display in a vacant lot. The television media, always quick to go with visuals over story depth, quickly tag the victims as “The Ludlow Four.”
Carter Ross, an investigative reporter with the newspaper Newark Eagle-Examiner, is supposed to take a different tack to the story. Instead of profiling the victims like a couple of other reporters at his newspaper are doing, his editor wants him to take a look at why the killings happened. More of the societal angle with a focus on how society needs to change to prevent such a needless tragedy.
The police are putting out for public consumption that the four recently robbed a local bar and were killed as retaliation. Ross is able to slowly identify all four victims and realizes that they came from varied walks of walk, far different parts of the city, and gradually comes to the realization that the explanation generated by the Police doesn’t make sense. In digging into their backgrounds, Ross not only proves the bar theory wrong, he proves that a theory advanced by the feds doesn’t work either.
The search for the common link between the four murder victims and the truth drives the events of the novel. A novel that occasionally, as all crime/mystery books and a majority of thrillers seem to do these days, shifts into the point of view of the demented mastermind behind all the killings. Something that this reader is very tired of and yet, as long as all the writer advice out there seems to encourage the practice, the annoyance will continue.
Other than those weak moments which border on the clichéd (the name of the evil master mind is laughably named “The Director” for goodness sake) the novel rolls steadily along with a cast of somewhat over the top characters who are allowed to grow far from their stereotyped beginnings. That fact, along with an interesting central character in Carter Ross, plenty of humor and action make this a highly enjoyable debut mystery. The ending is a little too rushed and our hero is easily saved by outside forces and yet the overall read is good one.
Faces Of The Gone: A Mystery
Brad Parks
http://www.bradparksbooks.com/
Thomas Dunne Books (Minotaur Books)
http://thomasdunnebooks.com/
2009
ISBN# 978-0-312-57477-2
Hardback
330 Pages
$23.99
Material provided by the good folks of the Plano, Texas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2010
Carter Ross, an investigative reporter with the newspaper Newark Eagle-Examiner, is supposed to take a different tack to the story. Instead of profiling the victims like a couple of other reporters at his newspaper are doing, his editor wants him to take a look at why the killings happened. More of the societal angle with a focus on how society needs to change to prevent such a needless tragedy.
The police are putting out for public consumption that the four recently robbed a local bar and were killed as retaliation. Ross is able to slowly identify all four victims and realizes that they came from varied walks of walk, far different parts of the city, and gradually comes to the realization that the explanation generated by the Police doesn’t make sense. In digging into their backgrounds, Ross not only proves the bar theory wrong, he proves that a theory advanced by the feds doesn’t work either.
The search for the common link between the four murder victims and the truth drives the events of the novel. A novel that occasionally, as all crime/mystery books and a majority of thrillers seem to do these days, shifts into the point of view of the demented mastermind behind all the killings. Something that this reader is very tired of and yet, as long as all the writer advice out there seems to encourage the practice, the annoyance will continue.
Other than those weak moments which border on the clichéd (the name of the evil master mind is laughably named “The Director” for goodness sake) the novel rolls steadily along with a cast of somewhat over the top characters who are allowed to grow far from their stereotyped beginnings. That fact, along with an interesting central character in Carter Ross, plenty of humor and action make this a highly enjoyable debut mystery. The ending is a little too rushed and our hero is easily saved by outside forces and yet the overall read is good one.
Faces Of The Gone: A Mystery
Brad Parks
http://www.bradparksbooks.com/
Thomas Dunne Books (Minotaur Books)
http://thomasdunnebooks.com/
2009
ISBN# 978-0-312-57477-2
Hardback
330 Pages
$23.99
Material provided by the good folks of the Plano, Texas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2010
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