Thu 22 Nov 2018
Mystery Review: JEFFERY WILDS DEAVER – Hard News.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[6] Comments
JEFFERY WILDS DEAVER – Hard News. Rune #3. Doubleday, hardcover, 1991. Bantam, paperback, June 1992.
Rune, not her real name, but the name she goes by, is an aspiring photojournalist and filmmaker living in a houseboat on the Hudson River in Manhattan. She’s in her early 20s, and as taken from Jeffrey Deaver’s website, she’s “five feet two inches of slick repartee, near-purple hair, and poetic imagination” with “with more ambition than political savvy.”
A description which doesn’t entirely do her justice, but it’s close enough. In Hard News, after watching a videotaped interview with him, she becomes convinced that a convict named Randy Boggs is actually innocent of the murder he claims he didn’t commit.
Where does she take her story on him to prove his innocence? Directly to Piper Sutton, the news anchorwoman for Current Events, one of the mostly highly watched TV news programs on the air. Somehow she manages to persuade Sutton to go ahead with the project. (It may have something to do with the fact that the man murdered was the head of the network at the time.)
All to the good. But do things go smoothly? In a word, no. She does manage to stir up a lot of trouble for both herself and the man in prison. Rune’s life style is, shall we say, somewhat unique, making for a story that’s a lot of fun to read. What makes it even more so is the fact she does all of the work on her project burdened down by a three-year-old girl whose mother abandoned her in Rune’s care.
Even as early as this in his career Jeffery Deaver, well-known now as the author of a long list of books about quadriplegic detective Lincoln Rhyme, had a way with words, turns of phrases and twists in the tale he’s telling that titillates the reader’s mind and teases one’s brain. The story, while rushed in the ending, isn’t at all bad either.
Bibliographic Note: At the end of the paperback edition, which I’ve just read, the next Rune book was announced as being The Mystery of You, to be released in January 1993. The book was never published. I wonder if it was ever written.
The Rune series —
Manhattan Is My Beat. Bantam 1989
Death of a Blue Movie Star. Bantam 1990
Hard News. Doubleday 1991
November 23rd, 2018 at 1:21 pm
Jeffyy?
November 23rd, 2018 at 2:26 pm
Oops. Fixed now. Thanks! Here’s what happened. I originally spelled his name Jeffrey in all three places, spotted it on my cellphone and tried to make the corrections from there. I don’t do well typing on my cellphone. It worked two times out of three.
November 23rd, 2018 at 3:19 pm
I’ve not read any of Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme books. I like the ideas of his needing to have someone do the legwork for him, but his adversaries always seem to be serial killers.
I gave up on reading mysteries about serial killers a long time ago. Has anyone read any of the Rhyme books? Am I missing anything?
November 23rd, 2018 at 8:55 pm
Not to my thinking, Steve.
November 23rd, 2018 at 9:07 pm
From previous comments by you on this blog, Rick, I think we think the same way a lot of times on books.
But I’m hoping that someone else may stop by and weigh in, even favorably, perhaps.
November 23rd, 2018 at 9:11 pm
By the way, and to shift gears again, I think Rune would be a great character in a cable or streaming TV series. The story I’ve just read was light-hearted overall, but it had some serious bloodletting and violence as well.
I’d suggest Emily Blunt as having the look and right size for the part, but I don’t know how well she does light-hearted.