The Evening News: A Novel

by Arthur Hailey

Overview

Cold-blooded politics, naked power, and raw terror behind the scenes. Murder in New York, terror in South America, bloody riots in Eastern Europe. That's the evening news as calmly reported by top TV anchorman Crawford Sloane . . . until his own life is torn apart in one dramatic moment. For when terrorists snatch his family, no one knows better than Sloane how slim are the chances of getting them back alive.
 
Now their fate depends on Sloane's rival, ace reporter Harry Partridge, on a beautiful and ruthless network CEO, and on Sloane's determination to track the kidnappers down—from New York to Columbia to the Peruvian Andes and a final heart-stopping climax of danger and death.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385504249
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/10/2001
Pages:	580
Sales rank:	675,817
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.25(d)

About the Author

Arthur Hailey (1920-2004), the author of eleven novels, many of which became #1 New York Times bestsellers, was born in Luton, England. He served as a pilot and flight lieutenant in the British Royal Air Force during World War II and immigrated to Canada in 1947. While working for a transportation trade magazine, he scored his first writing success with a television drama, and began to write screenplays full-time for various networks during the golden age of live television. His novel-writing career took off in 1959 with the publication of his first novel, The Final Diagnosis, and picked up velocity with Hotel and then Airport, which spent thirty weeks in the #1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list and became a blockbuster film.

Editorial Reviews

In his first book in six years, Hailey ( Airport ; Hotel ; etc.) links the infamous Medellin drug cartel with the violent revolutionaries of Sendero Luminoso --``the Shining Path''--a Maoist terrorist group that in this scorcher kidnaps the family of CBA-TV news anchor Crawford Sloane. After a slow, creaky start, and despite a pasteboard cast of guerillas who shoot off more stilted phrases than bullets, the story moves with speed and heat as Crawford's valiant wife Jessica, her young son Nicky and flinty father-in-law are smuggled in coffins to Peru, then marched to a steaming, remote jungle village. Back in the States, heavy-weight correspondent Harry Partridge, Jessica's old lover, spearheads an investigation that the network's slimy parent company, Globanic Industries, tries to hamper. Gripping behind-the-scenes action at CBA-TV and a vivid primer on terrorist tactics pepper the boiling pot. Credibility gaps in the final chapters are paved over by sheer, reckless drama. Literary Guild main selection; Reader's Digest Condensed Book Club selection. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

For years superstar anchorman Crawford Sloane and legendary correspondent Harry Partridge have been professional and personal rivals: yet it is to Partridge that Sloane turns when the woman they both love, Sloane's wife, is kidnapped by terrorists. This latest offering from Arthur Hailey, his first novel since Strong Medicine (LJ 10/15/84), follows the winning formula that has made his previous books best sellers. By pairing exhaustive, penetrating research with an exciting and taut story, Hailey gives us a fresh behind-the-scenes look at a complex and topical industry. So what if characterization is not one of Hailey's strengths, or if it's hard to swallow the coincidence that a rich, suburban housewife who gets kidnapped just happens to have taken lessons in CQB (close quarters battle) classes that sure come in handy in captivity. A winner just the same. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/89 . -- Lydia Burruel Johnson, Mesa P.L., Ariz.

Library Journal

``We interrupt our regular programming to bring you a special report. . . police . . . have reported the apparent kidnapping of the wife, young son, and father of CBA news anchorman Crawford Sloane'' summarizes the plot of this exciting novel. Readers will feel a part of the team of CBA staffers who become detectives in the exciting race to rescue the family from ruthless Colombian terrorists rather than give into their demands for free air time. Readers also witness life with the captives--both the brutal and the kinder moments. In typical, well-researched Hailey fashion, the behind-the-scenes world in the news department of the network is realistically brought to life. Italicized flashbacks present background that develops the characters more fully. The length of the novel may prevent many students from picking it up, but those who do will find an action-filled adventure that's hard to put down. The novel may also appeal to students interested in electronic journalism as a career; in addition to depicting newsroom life, the book will open their eyes to both the close camaraderie and the bitter conflicts that can exist in a large organization. --Claudia Moore, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA

School Library Journal