The Player: A Mystery Author: Brad Parks | Language: English | ISBN:
B00FCRBEKG | Format: PDF
The Player: A Mystery Description
When he hears residents of a Newark neighborhood are getting sick—and even dying—from a strange disease, investigative reporter Carter Ross dives into the story—so deep he comes down with the illness himself. With even more motivation to track down the source of the disease, Carter soon hits upon a nearby construction site. But when the project’s developer is found dead, and his mob ties surface, Carter knows he’s looking at a story much bigger—and with even more dangerous consequences—than an environmental hazard.
Back in the newsroom, Carter has his hands full with his current girlfriend and with the paper’s newest eager intern, not to mention his boss and former girlfriend Tina Thompson, who has some news for Carter that’s about to make tangling with the mob seem simple by comparison, in The Player by Brad Parks.
- File Size: 631 KB
- Print Length: 332 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1629233137
- Publisher: Minotaur Books (March 4, 2014)
- Sold by: Macmillan
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00FCRBEKG
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,998 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #92
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Crime Fiction
- #92
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Crime Fiction
This is the 5th book in the Carter Ross Mystery Series. Ross is an investigative reporter with the Newark Eagle Examiner. He’s funny and self-deprecating and I found that I really like this character.
Carter takes a call-in from a woman who he initially thinks is crazy. Jackie is telling Carter that everyone in her grandmother’s Ridewood Avenue neighborhood are getting sick, including her grandmother, Edna Foster, who has recently died unexpectedly. She’s looking for help and Carter smells a story, and after interviewing some of the neighbors, he thinks there’s something local and dangerous that could be slowly killing people.
The Ridgewood Avenue area was largely industrial and there was a large scale commercial construction project right down the street, McAlister Arms. Carter visits Vaughn McAlister to ask him if his project has unleashed some toxin into the air and McAlister denies it, saying the state EPA has supervised the cleanup of the land and it has a clean bill of health. But hours after talking with Carter, Vaughn is found dead. When a second dead body turns up, Carter starts to wonder if someone is cleaning house, and if so, who? Throw in a trio of hitmen, the mob, and an angry ex-girlfriend, and you have the makings of a fast paced book that I finished in a few evenings. I found myself cheering for Carter Ross, both in his investigation and screwed-up love life. The book was also full of well-placed humor and I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion.
By K. M. Hammond
Brad's Carter Ross series is a thrilling take on enterprising and investigative journalism, New Jersey, and specifically Newark, NJ. The stories are clean and well-written. Parts of the series for me evoke "the Wire" - one of the great television show of our times, focusing on a city in decline - but if it were based in Newark. This is not to say the story is derivative in any way. In fact, Brad's books were in the works before the HBO series came out. But for anybody who loved that series (or thrillers/crime/mystery), I would recommend Brad's books.
I had the chance to talk to Brad on a podcast which was released at the time of "The Player." To hear more about his thoroughly modern-day story, which takes him from sports beat writer, to the regular news beat, to novel writing, you can click on the following link to listen. A very engaging guy who really knows how to tell a story: [...]
By Matthew B. Mcqueeny
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