OFF THE AIR

Estes’ debut follows a Phoenix TV news reporter as she struggles to identify a colleague’s killer—and possibly land an interview with same.

At least Jolene Garcia doesn’t have to worry about any more rivalry from Larry Lemmon, the most popular radio host in town: He’s probably dead, maybe poisoned, perhaps courtesy of cyanide-laced cookies. No detail, however small, is definite until it’s confirmed and attributed, and although Jolene’s cop friend, Commander Jim Miranda, is willing to dole out information drop by drop, he won’t talk on the record. So Jolene watches in helpless fury as she’s scooped by inexplicably Emmy-winning SoCal hairpiece Jessica “JJ” Jackson, outmaneuvered by newbie network reporter Jeffrey Cooper, and stonewalled by differently leaning community activists Phillip Ellys and Ignacio Cortez, whose frequent differences with Larry make his producer, Ralph Flemski, dangle them as likely suspects. Both the likably whiny narrator and her author are less interested in solving the case than in making a case for, or against, the challenges of journalism in the multimedia age. It makes perfect sense that when Jolene is rescued from a face-to-face with a murderer who shows up at their climactic meeting better prepared than she is, her paramount concern is whether she’ll get an exclusive on the story. An appended Content Advisory warns that the tale “contains references to abandonment, ageism, animal cruelty, child neglect, classism, homelessness, racism, sexism, sexual coercion, and substance abuse.” It’s all there, but don’t get your hopes up: This is PG homicide.

The leading takeaway is a question: Why don’t more of those scrums among dueling reporters and sources end in murder?