funny & literate | Black and White and Dead All Over

Black & White & Dead All Over intrigues and commands one's interest throughout | Black and White and Dead All Over | John Darnton

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	• Black and White and Dead All Over John Darnton Knopf, 2008 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Enjoyable read inspite of voluminous characters

Once I got into it, I had a hard time putting it down. Some people may have to take notes though, since only War and Peace has more characters to keep track of. Possibly because you have lots of possibilities, "who done it" will keep you guessing until the end. Also, the "why" of the murders only becomes clear until the end of the book - many red herrings there too. I recommend the book, and think I have found a new author for me to read.

funny & literate

Although the plot line is clever & the suspense builds throughout this book, those aren't the only reasons I raced through it. Also because it's funny, especially some of the names--if you're half-way to being a journalist, you know that "Moloch" is le nom juste for a character based on Rupert Murdoch. Also if you're a New Yorker, you know this book is all about the New York Times, and the way things are for it right now, which is not pretty (in economic terms, I mean: nobody is actually getting murdered). John Darnton is a brave man,willing to stand on the brink of a precipice and gaze down into the abyss. As a result, he has given us a book that has a tragic dimension, as well as a feel-good ending & a lot of heart.

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Black & White & Dead All Over intrigues and commands one's interest throughout

"It was a lifeless body, and not just any body. It was Ratnoff."

When Ratnoff's secretary, Ellen Butterby, discovers his body in the New York Globe's newsroom, the newspaper's future is thrown into chaos. Senior editors grapple with the fact that one of their own has been brutally murdered in their hallowed workplace. An editor's spike, a symbol used to kill stories in old-time publishing days, has been driven into Ratnoff's chest. Affixed to the spike is a note, written in purple ink, Ratnoff's trademark color. It says, "Nice. Who?" --- Ratnoff's tell-tale query as to the authorship of a story.

Executive Editor Skeeter Diamond, publisher Elisha Hagenbuckle and Metro Editor Bernie Grabble confer and assign investigative reporter Jude Hurley to cover the story. Known as a loose cannon, Hurley is a digger who will find out what happened. A 35-year-old with a passion for his job, Hurley finds himself deep in scandal, hearsay and ambitious backstabbing at the Globe. He is a suspect and forced to work with a female detective assigned to the case. In addition, a second murder complicates the scene. Ratnoff's paramour, gossip columnist Peregrin Whibbleby, is discovered dead near the lobby stairs. A newspaper bundling machine has encased Whibbleby's body in the form of a statue holding a copy of the National Enquirer, resembling a wire mummy.

Hurley's rollercoaster investigation teams him with detective Priscilla Bollingsworth to solve the crimes. Newsmen become paranoid, publishers and editors seek answers without success, and Hurley second-guesses the loyalty of those he deemed friends. An intriguing subplot reveals ugly truths about the Globe's Greek founder, Hagenbuckle's father-in-law. While Hurley bull-dogs the facts closer to solving the hideous crimes, his personal life dives into a shambles. When his love interest, Rachel, seeks a more stable lifestyle, his job intensifies. Increasing hours spent with Bollingsworth is not unpleasant.

John Darnton's skill as a reporter and editor is evident in BLACK & WHITE AND DEAD ALL OVER. The newspaper jargon he writes hails from his experience. An avid journalist can learn tidbits from the publishing world's past. Darnton exploits methods long out of use to deploy his intricate plot, and the devices used for murder are deliciously utilized in graphic detail.

Darnton names his characters with style as well. Pronunciation whets the tongue with the bizarre handles he uses. Ellen Butterby, Peregrin Whibbleby, Elisha Hagenbuckle, Skeeter Diamond, Jude Hurley, Outsalot, Hickory Bosch --- monikers with eclectic flavor --- make for a humorous read. The comic witticisms interspersed throughout the novel give testimony to his sense of humor.

The death notes, written to taunt and reveal motive, cleverly insert poetic justice into the story. The diabolical methods of torture before death expose a twisted but ingenious personality.

BLACK & WHITE AND DEAD ALL OVER brims with metaphors and similes to satisfy readers of intellect and the urbane. Phrases like "dangling a steak bone two feet beyond a dog's leash," "computer complied like an Arabian horse responding..." and "murder unleashed a tsunami inside the Globe" engage the reader with appreciation for Darnton's style.

Both the main plot and subplot intrigue and command one's interest throughout. In today's digital world, the mechanics of outdated publishing methods read like a history of the profession. Darnton's knowledge of the newspaper business spices his story in a compelling new issue.

--- Reviewed by Judy Gigstad

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kept me reading

Kept me reading but there were too many characters and often lost track of who they were.

Turmoil in the newsroom

John Darnton not only entertains he can also matter-of-factly expose the inner workings of a major newspaper. Living in a city where the local paper has created it's news and not just reported it I related to this murder mystery. I purposely read Black and White slowly so as not to reach the ending too early and deny myself the pleasure of this well written suspense novel.
MFreed

A keenly intelligent, delightfully mordant novel that blends fact and fiction with the same deft hand that was at work in John Darnton?s best-selling Neanderthal.

Bad news is brewing in the inner sanctum of the New York Globe, the city?s long-standing newspaper of note, whose back is to the wall. Readership, advertising, and circulation are plummeting?along with the paper?s vaunted standards?and the cost cutters have their knives out. But trouble of a wholly different kind begins one rainy September morning when a powerful editor is found murdered in the newsroom, with the spike that he?d wielded to kill stories hammered into his chest. The problem for Priscilla Bollingsworth, the young, ambitious female NYPD detective assigned to the case?besides the fact that the mayor is breathing down her neck?is that there are too many suspects to choose from.

She teams up with Jude Hurley, a clever, rebellious reporter, and together they navigate the ink-infested waters whose denizens include the paper?s resentful old guard, scheming careerists, a bumbling publisher, a steely executive editor, and a rival newspaper tycoon named Lester Moloch. But the waters thicken considerably when more bodies turn up, dead all over.

Armed with the firsthand knowledge he has acquired through forty years in journalism, John Darnton conjures up the cynicism and romanticism of the profession and gives us a cunning, pitch-perfect portrait of the declining?if not yet murderous?newspaper industry. Black and White and Dead All Over is a satirical mystery that entertains from first to last.

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