Lead Review
- Book: The Cutaway
- Location: Washington DC
- Author: Christina Kovac
“Sometimes the news is what happens when the camera cuts away….”
Set against the political hub of Washington DC, this thriller takes you behind the scenes of a newsroom, where political intrigue and mysteries are as prevalent and ingrained as in the wider city backdrop.
Virginia Knightly is a true investigative newshound, a news producer who is really drawn to the case of a missing woman, Evelyn Carney, who was having dinner with her husband but left in distress. From that point onwards the trail goes cold. Machiavellian dealings both at the station and elsewhere disrupt the detective work, but Virginia is a sassy woman who will not be deflected from her averred mission to find out what happened. Was she murdered, or did she hook up with another man, with whom she was perhaps having an affair? Just two of the manifold options on the table….
As she delves deeper into the case, she identifies potential candidates for murder, yet with no body in evidence it is mere conjecture. She also has to pace sharing her findings as she wants her station to be heading the dissemination of any developing news. It’s a hard balance to manage.
The construction of the story unfolds as though we are watching news bites and updates as the investigation revs up. It is an ideal format for a TV adaptation. The city of Washington DC gets a good look-in, and a handy map was supplied by the publisher to gauge the locations where some of the main events take place. You can tell that the author is really familiar with the ways of news gathering, news dissemination and with the city itself.
I very much enjoyed the writing style, whilst the storyline left me a little disengaged. The novel had a good, strong opener, at times a little heavy on the procedural, I guess for me I would have liked to see a little more nimbleness in the narrative. However, if you are an unswerving fan of political intrigue and edgy newsroom backstories, then this will definitely be one for you.
On this link from the original blogpost, Christina shares her top tips for a visit to DC
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