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Stalking Susan by Julie Kramer By Melissa J Wantuck  |
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Murder mystery fans will enjoy picking up Stalking Susan by Julie Kramer (Anchor, 2009). Now available in paperback, Kramer’s first book introduces Riley Spartz, a news journalist from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Riley is snappy and driven. Think Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, but a little more liberal with her money. The story set up at the beginning is a little clunky but it has a fast-paced race to the finish.
Riley works for one of the Twin City’s news channels as an investigative reporter. She’s won many awards for her stories and has achieved high ratings for her news station with her work. Some of the keys to her success are her ability to sniff out a story and finding sources willing to reveal inside information.
Stalking Susan opens with Riley speeding in her Mustang to a meeting with her most secretive source, a city police officer, who hands her a cold case file he was assigned to. The file, over fifteen years old, contains the murders of two young women. The investigations of each murder were considered separate but two small connections where noted. The women were killed on the same day one year apart, and both were named Susan. Now that Riley’s source is retiring, he hopes passing the torch to Riley will bring a new perspective to the case, especially because he fears political corruption connected with it.
Riley thinks the case will bring her big ratings and screams awards. She accepts it and begins preliminary work to prepare it so she can pitch it to her boss, Noreen. She has other ideas for Riley and assigns her to what Riley thinks is a dead end story. Both stories soon consume her time and may even put her life on the line. Riley is so busy racing around looking for corruption she misses the warning bells of danger right in front of her as she chases both stories.
Kramer’s bigger picture in Stalking Susans contrasts Riley’s professional life with her personal life, playing on the feelings of readers to look past how Riley makes a living and get to know her as a person. Trying to separate the two seems to be important to Kramer. She herself was a local news producer and now works for some of NBC’s biggest news shows. So, just as provocative as the unfolding events in Stalking Susan is the inside insight Kramer provides into the “objective” media reporting of news by television journalists.
Kramer may have intended to portray a good guy/bad guy battle that wages in the newsroom with Noreen representing bad corporate news concentrating on ratings for the money instead of the mission to the public. Riley is the good reporter who seeks stories that help the public but Riley’s conduct is just as egregious.
All of this makes for an exciting and entertaining story as Riley goes beyond the role of investigative journalist and becomes a private detective to produce a television news story. When it’s all done, Riley returns in Kramer’s second book, Missing Mark, released by Doubleday in July this year. A sneak peak exert of Missing Mark is available at the end of the Anchor edition of Stalking Susan.
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