Customer Reviews

Radio Activity

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book by Fitzhugh is different, in some good ways, from his previous books, though the trademark keen wit, action-filled plot, and memorable characters are still there. In reading some of the other reader reviews, while most of his fan club loved this book as much as I did, I saw that a couple of readers complained that it was not the "same" as his other works. I think that these readers simply failed to appreciate the added depth of this book. As a writer should, Fitzhugh seems to be maturing. This book retains the ribald humour that we have come to depend on from Fitzhugh, but it also probes deeper into real life. I think that it's a great direction for him to go in, as this book demonstrates that real life can be more entertaining, unpredictable and rewarding than the lighter, more improbable yarns that certain readers seem to want Fitzhugh to spin out.

Unlike Fitzhugh's previous works, which often featured outrageous, hilarious, though implausible, scenes, Radio Activity is more grounded in reality - which I liked. The protagonist, Rick Shannon, is an Everyman, slogging along from paycheck to paycheck. He is someone whose many hard knocks and few successes we can all identify with. But Rick is more than just another "schmo" - he also is a hero, fighting - on the very brink of the yawning, black hole of pasturized rock that the Modern Big Radio Industry has become - to promote a music format that retains and revitalizes the heart and essence of true, classic, rock'n roll. In the course of pulling hard for Rick and his cool cast of DJ's to win the musical battle against corrupt Management and the Industry, as well as for Rick to succeed in solving the murder mystery and in finding real love in mid-life, the reader also learns fascinating details about the history and nuances of rock music and famous rock musicians. Fitzhugh is clearly on home turf when he writes about rock music in a deep South setting.

This a highly entertaining read, with plenty of humour, intrigue and action, that also makes a powerful statement about the sad state of affairs of present-day rock'n roll as played on the radio. By the time I reached the exciting conclusion of Radio Activity, the close relationship I had developed with Rick left me wanting to know what humourous life adventures lie ahead for him, as he seems to be, at last, poised to ascend in his radio career, as well as in his love life.

This is one of Ftitzhugh's best, and represents a promising new direction for him.

In his previous novels mystery author Bill Fitzhugh has used various industries as backdrops for his stories, including pest control, biotechnology, organ transplantation (both human-to-human and animal-to-human), country music, and advertising. In RADIO ACTIVITY, his latest effort, Fitzhugh sets his sites on the radio industry.

Rock and roll deejay Rick Shannon has seen better days. Media giant Clean Signal Corporation (a jab at real-life media monster Clear Channel) has gobbled up the radio station that had provided him with gainful if less than glamorous and far less than artistically satisfying employment. His vast and precious record collection turns out to be worth far less where he is, in Bismarck, North Dakota, than it would be elsewhere, which is exactly where Rick would like to be. So when he is offered the seven-to-midnight shift on classic rock station WAOR in McRae, Mississippi, he packs his stuff into his pick-up and heads for yet another radio gig, his fifteenth in twenty years.

What Rick finds in McRae is ultra-smarmy WAOR station manager Clay Stubblefield. Clay informs Rick on his arrival that he has already been promoted to program director, the position having been vacated thanks to the disappearance of notorious cokehead Jack Carter. Rick accepts the news with something less than full enthusiasm. But a man without a paycheck is easily swayed.

At Clay's invitation Rick moves into Carter's abandoned mobile home. After settling in Rick finds a reel-to-reel tape, apparently hidden by Carter, of a telephone conversation between Stubblefield and an unidentified man. The blackmail-worthy chit-chat on the tape, coupled with Carter's sudden absence, leads Rick to suspect that Carter may have been using the tape in an ill-fated plan to siphon cash from the unctuous Stubblefield. Rick's growing curiosity about Carter's fate and the truth behind the tape proves as powerful a lure as the abundant blue eye shadow preferred by Traci, WAOR's deliciously trashy receptionist.

The story that ensues deftly combines all the necessary ingredients of a first-rate murder mystery with a remarkably detailed and fascinating dissertation on the definition and nature of classic rock, the current state of the radio business, and the homogenization of America as big media's search for the all-important mass audience dilutes what's left of local and regional color to the muddy charcoal gray of the asphalt parking lots that are rapidly becoming the dominant feature of the American landscape.

Fitzhugh's reputation for memorably off-center characters and crisp, comical dialogue is fully in evidence here. But having come of age in the era when AM top 40 began to give way to FM album-oriented rock (it was called underground or progressive music back then), I was particularly enthralled by the remarkable detail in which the music of the era was discussed. Fitzhugh, through protagonist Rick Shannon, mentions bands and songs that I haven't heard since I was a teenager, and the effect was an odd mix of nostalgia for those times and anger at what bean-counters and market research types have done to rock and roll. A couple of recent newspaper stories about the wildfire success of satellite and Internet radio coincided with my reading of RADIO ACTIVITY, and the thought of the pending demise of whatever rock and roll radio has become added an extra dimension to my enjoyment as I rooted for Rick Shannon to solve the mystery of Jack Carter's fate and make a success of the truly classic rock format he has devised for WAOR.

RADIO ACTIVITY offers plenty to satisfy mystery fans and music fans alike. The research into the history of the music of the late sixties and early seventies rivals that of the technical research that goes into Tom Clancy novels. But the information is blended seamlessly into the story, or more to the point, into Rick Shannon, which makes his character all the more interesting. And Rick is but one of a menagerie that includes good ole boys, cranky roadhouse waitresses, bent cops, assorted local ne'er do wells, and some eccentric good guys for balance. In Fitzhugh's hands crime doesn't pay, but it rocks, and it's a hell of a lot of fun.

--- Reviewed by Bob Rhubart

This book is an enjoyable read, especially for those true music fans who can only imagine a radio station that would care as much for the music as the do at WAOR. As far as a music/detective novel, I'll give it 50% on both sides. The music references were SUPURB, but it's a detective novel. The private investigator that Rick will become will hopefully spawn a little more excitement and not be quite as predictable. Overall, once again, it was an enjoyable read. It was my first from this author and I will definitely pick up another of his novels.

Fitzhugh scores bigtime with his new book...great music history, a keen understanding of radio's future, superb characterizations (the station manager is to be found everywhere), a keen sense of suffocating small town culture with an eye for essential human values. Well-paced, well-plotted. Nice thing about Fitzhugh is that he entertains and informs...much more important writer than Tim Dorsey, et al. I couldn't put it down.

Rick Shannon is a dinosaur. In the every changing face of mass pleasing corporate radio Rick is a classic rock DJ who cares about both the quality of music and staying true to your listeners. Of course, this makes him nearly unemployable. So when shady station general manager Clay Stubblefield calls with an offer, Rick has no choice but to travel down to good ole' McRae, Mississippi to take the job. But with that job comes a mystery. What happened to Captain Jack the former program director, and what's with the mysterious recording that Captain Jack had hidden in an old Chicago boxset? Thus Rick adopts the persona of Buddy Miles, private investigator and with the help of the alluring and properly made up station receptionist, Rick is definitely going to get to the bottom of it.

In Radio Activity, Bill Fitzhugh has stepped away from the slapstick goofiness of such fun novels as Pest Control, The Organ Grinders and Heart Seizure and has created a down to earth and surprisingly low keyed tale of corruption and intrigue in a local radio station. Like Kellerman's Alex Delaware or James W, Hall's Thorn, Rick Shannon is Bill Fitzhugh's voice. A character destined for the multi-novel series treatment and one with lots of potential. Yet, there is another character here, and that is the music. Fitzhugh let's us in on the discussion of what "classic rock" really is. Is it the everyday hits we here played over and over on out radio's or is it more than that. Fitzhugh tackles a topic that he really knows and loves and makes us start to love it. Now, I'm a little young for that particular genre, but it made me want to run down to my parent's basement and sort through all their old vinyl's looking for hidden treasures.

For fans of Fitzhugh this novel is more along the lines of Fender Benders, which was one of my favorites in this writer's collection. I for one cannot wait to see what advertures Rick Shannon gets into next.

In 1970s Bismarck, rock and roll deejay Rick Shannon loses his job when his station is sold. He is despondent and concerned about finding work in a changing business climate in which corporate intrusion has led to one size fits all play lists and patter must be politically correct as defined by big brother owner.

Desperate to remain in the field, Rick accepts work as the late evening host Buddy Miles in McRae, Mississippi. However, upon arriving in town, he learns that the station's general manager Clay Stubblefield expects Rick to serve as the program director. Rick agrees to stay on as program manager only if he also receives the night spot replacing local legend "Captain" Jack Carter. Though the reader ironically knows, Rick wonders why the Captain left town without taking his valuable record collection. Rick investigates what happened to his predecessor helped by a tape that the captain took of Clay implying sexual misconduct and potential illegal drug activity. If Rick is not careful he might learn the hard way how the old boy method works on interfering outsiders.

This is an engaging look back at an era in which radio is changing from local to regional and national. The amateur sleuth aspects of the tale are fun though the tension is more of a slow dance than a hustle. Rick is terrific as the outsider while Clay and his cohorts give southern living a sinister name. Bill Fitzhugh furbishes an insightful tale starring a fine protagonist who deserves a second gig from his new haunt in Gulfport.

Harriet Klausner

I loved all the classic rock references and the info about how a radio station is run and how a dj's work is done. The mystery was enjoyable enough but it was the music info that I really loved. I will definitely read the next in the series. I'm assuming that's where he's headed given the ending of the book.

See storyline above.

I keep waiting for Bill Fitzhugh to write something as funny as his first two novels (Pest Control, Organ Grinders), but his recent novels just haven't quite done it (Maybe Tim Dorsey spoiled it for me).
I've read all his novels and still enjoy his story-telling and his ability to draw you into the plot. They are fun and fast-paced and definitely easy to get through.

Recommended.

This is my second Fitzhugh novel and although I think it lacked the fast pace and has a little bit less of the Carl Hiaasen type surreal events of the other Fitzhugh novel I read Cross Dressing, it was still a great read. I did think though the Fitzhugh got a little bit side tracked at times with trying to show off his knowledge from his days at FM rock stations of classic rock albums and music industry politics. Radio Activity though was a great read and I will definitely be checking out the sequel Highway 61 Resurfaced as well as all the other novels Bill Fitzhugh has written.

In Radio Activity, Rick Shannon has been a radio DJ for a long time and is seeing his profession dwindle in numbers from Syndication and thinks the industry is losing the plot as to what radio is all about. After being unemployed and forced to sell his records to survive he is relieved, although not thrilled to accept a job offer in rural Mississippi. Upon arrival he soon finds out that his job has a lot more to it than he agreed to but embraces the challenge of the position and sets out to give WAOR-FM a unique identity by playing only classic rock songs that no one else plays anymore. He also decides to investigate the life of the DJ he has replaced who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. He is even more motivated to find the truth when his windshield is smashed and he is beaten up by a debt collector after the money owed by his predecessor who he is mistaken for. Rick takes on the persona of Buddy Miles PI and sets out to uncover the secrets which seem to involve his boss, the local police and everyone else career wise he shouldn't antagonise.

Who is Tommy Bolin and is "Teaser" any good? That is just one of many questions I'm asking myself after reading Radio Activity. Anyone into classic rock will enjoy the great references, the trivia, the professional selection of music to be played on a classic rock station.

The music and the radio business intrigue is blended with a fine mystery. Bill Fitzhugh has honed his writing skills while maintaining his great sense of humor.