Quick Synopsis – Jolene Garcia is a local TV reporter in Phoenix, Arizona, splitting her time between covering general assignments—anything from a monsoon storm to a newborn giraffe at the zoo—and special projects. When a local ultra conservative radio talk show host is seemingly murdered, Jolene is willing to do anything to get the exclusive. Anything.

Song This Reminds Me Of – Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins

Publication Date – March 26, 2024

Rating – 3.5 out of 5 ⭐

Content Warnings – This book features off-page mention of harm against dogs. This story contains references to child abandonment, ageism, a dog attack, animal cruelty, child neglect, classism, homelessness, racism, sexism, sexual coercion, and substance abuse.

Review – If you liked the movie Nightcrawler with Jake Gyllenhaal, you’ll probably like this book. When we start the story, Jolene seems to have some journalistic integrity, but she quickly burns bridges and herself out by trying to get the scoop before anyone else can. She’s the underdog normal-looking reporter and in case she wasn’t scrappy enough, she was also a foster kid who was taken in by her maternal grandmother. If this book is setting up a whole world following Jolene as an investigative reporter, the tragic backstory makes sense, but if this is a one-off it was kind of unnecessary.

Jolene didn’t need to be abandoned as a child to be good at her job. At no point does that backstory really aid the story. Honestly, other than the dog attack she suffered as a child, there was no need for any childhood backstory. Jolene has a crippling fear of dogs because of the attack, which of course means she repeatedly comes up against dogs in the story. It does end up working, though, in the grand context of the story, and she does somewhat face this fear.

I will praise the author for not including an unnecessary love plot point. I was worried that her cop friend was going to turn into a love plot point, but nope, just some good old-fashioned partnership between cops and the media. Another thing I really enjoyed was the history peppered throughout the book. As Jolene was investigating, she was also researching, and the author did an excellent job of blending the history of Phoenix and related stories into the story.

Overall, this was an enjoyable story and while the culprit might have been a bit predictable, I still had a good time reading.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press – Minotaur Books and Netgalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.