8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Whatever happened to journalism?, February 14, 2010
This review is from: Deadlines (Paperback)
Sometimes a book comes along that answers a question forming in your mind for a long time. Deadlines did this for me. Why is it that the respected profession of journalism seems at an end, with papers crashing left and right, rehashed stories, and only NPR willing to offer explanations.
McHugh's book takes you into the ICU of big city papers dying, showing you the forces that modern journalists must contend with. And he does it in a damn fine tale.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mystery yarn upholds craft of investigative journalism, October 25, 2010
This review is from: Deadlines (Paperback)
by PETER PORCO, Anchorage, AK
DEADLINES is an engaging mystery yarn that puts a journalist in the role of the shamus. The novel, by former newsman Paul McHugh, is a page-turner that champions the investigative reporter and the urge to "afflict the comfortable" as timeless necessities regardless of whatever technology is used to get the news out. The multi-layered "Deadlines," McHugh's second novel, also is a story of personal redemption--that of a hard-drinking, self-pitying, all but washed-up ink-stained wretch who rediscovers the core mission of his craft and the joy he once got from fulfilling it. McHugh's flawed hero becomes his stand-in for the entire news industry, making "Deadlines" a book about the survival of investigative reporting as much as about anything else.
In 2007, McHugh, a feature writer and outdoor editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, was let go in that paper's severe downsizing--another victim of the techno-economic bust that struck the entire newspaper industry. McHugh took a buyout and in a farewell column urged readers to ride herd on all their news outlets so reporters and editors would always "delve a level deeper and ask the disturbing questions." He was speaking from experience. McHugh had played a major role on Chronicle investigative teams that probed the workings of California state parks authorities. He and his colleagues helped to send some people to prison for screwing the public. Most famously, in the 1990s, McHugh et al exposed a corrupt arrangement whereby private entities were under contract to manage public lands--the Asilomar Conference Center near Monterrey, Calif.--and were making millions doing so but returning zilch to the state parks system.
The mystery at the heart of "Deadlines" is an echo of the Asilomar case. In the novel, Cornu Point, a hunk of land along the exquisite California coast near Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco, was given to the state decades ago by its private owner under the stipulation that it would forever remain a public park. However, California State Parks, its budget withered by the crisis in public funding, has contracted with a private company to manage Cornu Point. The corporate suits intend to exploit the choice coastal forest, scrublands and trails, and their plans have nothing to do with public benefit--or even with keeping Cornu Point open to all.
An elderly woman, daughter of the man who gave Cornu Point to the state, is outraged at the subversion of her father's wishes. She protests loud enough that, in a chilling scene, she is brutally murdered--but not before she calls a rookie reporter for the fictional San Francisco Post-Dispatch, a man young enough to be ablaze with journalistic idealism even in an age of print-news retrenchment. That phone call, her death, and the young reporter's fearless quest to know the truth and establish his rep set the plot on. Soon Colm MacCay, a weary alcoholic ex-columnist, is willy-nilly sucked in. Inspired by the youngster, MacCay finds that his old reporter's bones are creaky but surprisingly hot for another go at the old game. After all, loving the fight, the chess match, the duel, belongs as much to journalism at its best as getting the facts right.
To tell his story, McHugh shows some scorn for narrative reliability. In the early going, he breaks point-of-view rules, but never really to distraction, and anyway--who cares? McHugh allows himself lots of infectious fun. In 243 highly readable pages, the "Deadlines" banquet serves up sumptuous action; the still seductive, iconic crime setting of San Francisco and the coastal lands to its south; precisely etched characters, including a lesbian gym trainer and cop wannabe who could almost step out of Stieg Larson's "The Girl Who..." novels; the invigorating portrait of a newsroom in full uproar as it pursues a big story; and a solution to the Cornu Point crime that, while satisfying in itself, is not the end of the story. In fact, in a "Postlude" dessert, McHugh offers the answer to a second mystery, which resides in MacCay's heart. This new puzzle introduces the reader to a different crime, one predating MacCay's birth, occurring on another continent. It feels like an add-on, and the novelist admits as much by calling it a "Postlude." On the other hand, along the way McHugh has dropped intimations of this other mystery, which involves a family.
Ah, families! Hate 'em, love 'em, you can't ignore 'em. Nor should "Deadlines" be ignored by anyone who loves a good mystery and a good news story both.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
