Reporter Natalie Joday’s
career is at a crossroads. She thought she’d seen the last of cops and
courtrooms, but if she agrees to join the Bergen Evening Star’s Crime Bureau,
foul play and forensics will be her daily fare. Natalie puts off the decision
by getting involved in a newsroom mystery: who is sending letters filled with
riddles and signed simply “Enigma” to the Star’s elderly (and easily rattled)
advice columnist? It’s just a game to Natalie and her psychologist friend,
Rebecca Elias, until the solution points to the murder of an alcoholic
bankrupt—a man whose political career was ruined by the Star twenty years
earlier.
When she finds the body of
a second victim, Natalie’s mind is made up: whoever it was that burned off the
dead man’s face must pay. And fast—because a rival paper, the Bugle, is having
a field day blasting the Star’s owners as murder suspects on its front page.
While her sometime friend Sgt. Geoff Allan tries to drag the truth from Myra
Vandergelden, the Star’s glamorous CEO and Editor-in-Chief, Natalie sets out to
track down Enigma among the political bigwigs and power brokers of New Jersey.
The situation comes to a head at a local Meet the Candidates event, where
Natalie finally gets the chance to ask questions of her chief suspect. But can
she get a politician to tell the truth? And will there be a paper left to work
for if she does?
About
the Author:
Ellen Larson’s short
stories have appeared in Yankee Magazine,
AHMM (Barry Award finalist), and Big Pulp. She is the author of the NJ
Mysteries, The Hatch and Brood of Time
and Unfold the Evil. After working as
an editor in Egypt for fifteen years, she returned to the states and now lives
in an off-grid cabin, enjoying the solitude.
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