The Reporter

by Kelly Lange

Overview

Well-known Hollywood TV reporter Maxi Poole is determined to find the killer of Oscar(-winning director Jack Nathanson--her former husband. Using all her investigative skills and insider access, Maxi uncovers a list of suspect--and soon becomes the killer's next target.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780446612562
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	07/01/2003
Series:	Maxi Poole Series , #1
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.81(d)

Editorial Reviews

The best parts of Lange's (Gossip and Trophy Wife) mystery debut are when the veteran Los Angeles news anchor and Hollywood insider lets her roots show, dropping gobbets of showbiz lore into the otherwise thin broth of a bland story. When Lange's Maxi Poole a tall blonde whom we first meet (at the funeral of her ex-husband, actor Jack Nathanson) wearing "a short, bright red, zip-up sweater with a red-and-white tweed miniskirt" describes the furnishings at Nathanson's Benedict Canyon home, anyone who has ever read a People profile will recognize the artwork: "Bulky, bizarre sculptures on pedestals, cryptic drawings and gigantic pieces of Expressionism, bloody, gory scenes portraying people cut in half, phantoms, ghouls, the devil in many forms, human and animal freaks of nature." Likewise, Maxi's work methods when she talks to the homicide detectives investigating Nathanson's murder also ring bright and true: "Still, she expected to learn something from the conversation a tone, an attitude, a feeling that they were really on to something, or not." But these original moments only serve to make the rest of this flabby tale about which one of Nathanson's horde of ex-wives and lovers actually knocked him off sound more like an Entertainment Tonight recycle than a hot news item although readers might have some fun trying to figure just how close the conniving, kinky and fatally charming Jack Nathanson is to a real-life star with a similar name. Agent, Robin Rue. (Mar. 14) Forecast: With a four-city author tour and plugs from the likes of Sidney Sheldon and Dominick Dunne, Lange, a former anchor and reporter for L.A.'s KNBC-TV and a correspondent for the daily news show Women 2 Women, should get off to a fast start. Hollywood gossip fans could sustain the momentum. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Glamorous TV news reporter Maxi Poole attends the funeral of her "movie-superhero" ex-husband because she suspects that another ex-wife will be charged with his killing. Sure enough, police arrest beautiful actress Debra (ex-wife No. 1 and a friend of Maxi) at the burial. Believing Debra to be innocent, Maxi (ex-wife No. 2) throws her investigative reporting into high gear amid the dead man's debtors, spurned paramours, and other enemies. Ably painted with all the requisite glitz, gossip, media hype, and sex that attend a Hollywood production, this makes a welcome romp for all collections. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Ding-dong, the wicked actor Jack Nathanson is dead, and-as in the old Hollywood joke-virtually all of la-la land turns out for his funeral to make sure. Among the attendees is TV reporter Maxie Poole, who, as she studies her still-good-looking ex in his tasteless coffin, can't muster anything resembling sorrow. Jack had that kind of negative effect on his other two wives as well: Italian beauty Debra Angelo, the mother of his child, and powerhouse talent agent Janet Orson, the current Mrs. Nathanson. But his enemies list transcends marital connections. Just about anyone who ever had any dealings with Jack might have put two bullets into him. Former child star Meg Davidson's co-starring turn in the blockbuster movie Black Sabbat was darkened by Jack's sexual abuse, an experience from which she never recovered. He treated Zahna Cole, his occasional mistress, so shabbily that hard drugs became her desperate refuge from pain and humiliation. At the funeral, however, it's first wife Debra who's arrested, though the sketchy evidence against her will raise skeptical eyebrows among mystery veterans. Other murders follow, along with a mistaken arrest and a tragic suicide. When Maxie herself becomes a suspect, she finds herself reporting her own story. It's uncomfortable, sure, but not nearly as bad as what's in store for her at the big, predictable Grand Guignol finish. Los Angeles TV anchor Lange has tried fiction before (Gossip, 1998, etc.), but this is her first crack at plotting a mystery. It shows.

Kirkus Reviews