Hank Philippi Ryan, The Other Woman
Forge Books; © 2012
This is the first book in a series (so far with five entries)
featuring Jane Ryland, and it was quite widely admired:
It probably says more about me than about the book, but I was not all that impressed.
It probably says more about me than about the book, but I was not all that impressed.
Ryland was a rising television news star in Boston, until the subject
of one of her stories (Arthur Vick) sued for libel—and won a $1 million
judgment. Ryland had refused to reveal
her source for the story, and the jury chose to believe Vick. She lost her job in the aftermath, and, as
this book opens, is beginning a new job (which, incidentally, is not well
defined—newspaper reporters tend to have “beats”—local government, education,
neighborhood, crime/police; by inference, Ryland seems to be on a mix of
covering politics—a campaign for a US Senate seat—and crime). Her first assignment is to get an interview
with the wife (Moira Lassiter) of one of the candidates (Owen) for the Senate.
Meanwhile, a cop whom Ryland has reluctantly chosen not to pursue a
personal relationship with is one of the lead investigators working on what
may, or may not, be serial killings.
(Incidentally, for all the media coverage the killings are getting, it
seems odd that apparently only two cops are actively working the case.) And—surprise!—one of the potential suspects is
Arthur Vick.
Reverting back to the campaign, a young woman (Keena Wilke) basically
talks her way into a more and more important role as a volunteer, while another
(or the same?) woman is up to something as Holly Neft. As we progress through the book, Lassiter’s
campaign manager, Rory Maitland, does some fairly surprisingly badly designed
things…and Lassiter seems not to realize that Maitland is behaving strangely
(Lassiter, it should be noted, is a career politician and a former governor of
Massachusetts). None of these characters
seem to me to be well-developed or particularly credible; their actions seem to
spring more from the requirements of Ryan’s plot than from their personalities.
Jane Ryland, our lead character, did not make a very positive
impression (on me, at any rate). She
starts off being pretty self-pitying (understandably, maybe) and whiny. She apparently never sleeps or eats. And the examples we get to read of her
reportorial writing are not very compelling.
As an interviewer, she doesn’t ask interesting, probing, or challenging
questions. (Frankly, she never seems to
be well-prepared for interviews.)
Finally (the this is almost certainly a SPOILER, so you might want to
skip this paragraph), apparently no one knows that Owen Lassiter had been
married once before he married Moira, and that he has a son and a daughter from
that first marriage. The man’s a career
politician, for god’s sake. As near as I
can make out the timeline, he held elective office during his first
marriage. And everyone has forgotten about
it?
Ryan writes reasonably well, and the conclusion to the book is
reasonably well-handled, But I had a lot
of trouble getting to the conclusion. I’m
not sure I’m inclined to read another in the series.
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