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    Black and White and Dead All Over
    Black and White and Dead All Over
    Black and White and Dead All Over
    Audiobook12 hours

    Black and White and Dead All Over

    Written by John Darnton

    Narrated by Phil Gigante

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJul 29, 2008
    ISBN9781423362906
    Black and White and Dead All Over
    Author

    John Darnton

    John Darnton has worked for forty years as a reporter, editor, and foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He was awarded two George Polk Awards for his coverage of Africa and Eastern Europe, and the Pulitzer Prize for his stories that were smuggled out of Poland during the period of martial law. He is a best-selling author whose previous novels include Neanderthal and The Darwin Conspiracy. He lives in New York.

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    Reviews for Black and White and Dead All Over

    3.5/5

    64 ratings11 reviews

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    • 3/5
      One need not have ever worked for a newspaper to appreciate John Darnton's 2008 mystery "Black & White and Dead All Over," but it helps. Darnton, who had a long career as a reporter and editor for The New York Times, makes the murder of an editor for the fictional New York Globe the core of his story. And it appears to have been an inside job. There is no shortage of suspects, for not too many staff members liked Theodore Ratnoff. One who did, a woman who was having an affair with him, is soon found dead as well.Darnton seems as interested in satirizing the newspaper industry as he is in crafting an entertaining murder mystery. He jabs at the trend, already well underway in 2008, for newspaper executives to seriously downsize both staff and news coverage, then wonder why they continue to lose readers. And after the first newsroom murder, the Globe editors bury the story, page-one news for their competitors, on page 32. Newspapers famously hide their own bad news.The author's handling of newsroom politics and operations often seems better than his handling of the mystery itself. The latter is interesting enough, but as bodies pile up and the serial killer keeps finding more outlandish ways of getting rid of enemies on the staff, the mystery itself falls into satire.So it's not the best mystery you are likely to find, but you will find it entertaining, especially if, like me, you have worked for a newspaper.
    • 5/5
      Excellent murder mystery written about a fictitious NYC newspaper by a former writer for the NY Times. Murders start occurring, starting with the Assistant Managing Editor. NYCPD Det. Priscilla Bollingsworth and NY Globe reporter Jude Hurley "navigate the ink-infested waters" of the cesspool that made up the news people. Well-written, witty, well-written. Loved it. Couldn't putt it down.
    • 3/5
      Fast paced short chapters good mystery. The story was solidly told with a plethora of characters. Lots of red herrings that added to the intrigue. The murderer was a slight let down but the story held together well.
    • 4/5

      I loved this author's earlier The Darwin Conspiracy (though not so much his first novel, Neanderthal), so pounced on this when I came across it. A series of murders in the building of the New York Globe (i.e., the New York Times, where Darnton has for a long time been an illustrious fixture) shocks all the journos and indeed the nation. The tale is full of roman a clef elements -- no prizes for guessing who's the prototype for Antipodean media mogul Lester Moloch, for example -- but that's just icing on what proves, after a sticky first 50 or so pages, to be a very delectable cake. Those early pages are annoying because Darnton opts for a cheap way of trying to keep our attention -- repeating wacky urban-legend-style journo tales. Because the tales actually are funny/bizarre/whatever, this first part of the book isn't boring: it's just that I got fed up by the fact that as good a writer as Darnton can be was so lacking in confidence as to be resorting to this tactic. The early part of the book is, too, marred by P.D. James-esque orotundity.

      That hurdle over, the book got better and better. I laughed out loud quite a few times (as when the Globe boss, a man with a rare talent for mauling quotes, came out with "The only thing we have to worry about is worry itself", p198); meanwhile, I was turning the pages avidly to find out what was going to happen next. Great stuff.
    • 3/5
      Fun to read for someone who once thought of being a newspaper reporter. The inside look at the newspaper world was very interesting, with all the politics and competition. The only problem was that there were so many characters, you needed some kind of chart or tree to keep track of everyone.
    • 4/5
      Entertaining, funny, informative, nostalgic as well as a good mystery-- I really liked this book and the writing and newspaper anecdotes and insider-speak kept me interested. Look at some of the character names: Guilliam Toothy (the PR guy), Elisha Hagenbuckle (publisher), Priscilla Bollingsworth (police), Vickie Gimmy (national editor), Peregrin Whibbleby (gossip columnist), Judith/Dinah Outsalot (food critic)-- see what I mean?
    • 4/5
      One of the best I have read in a long time. I wish he had a bunch of others like this, but he doesn't.
    • 5/5
      Takes place in the offices of 'The New York Globe'. The body of one of the editors is found with a spike buried in his chest.A young reporter,Jude Hurley,attempts to discover the facts in the case and to write the newspaper story of his career. Soon another body is discovered,this time murdered in one of the most unusual ways I have come across. When a third murder occurs,this time in full view of thousands of people on television,the publishers have to decide whether to close the paper for good. Jude is a likable character who teams up with the policewoman in charge of the case,Priscilla Bollingsworth. In a not always easy association,they attempt to bring the killer out of the shadows and solve the somewhat complicated series of events.This gives a good look into the back-biting and power-play that exists inside newspapers. As well as being an enjoyable crime novel in it's own right,this is an insight into the world of the 'Fourth Estate'.
    • 3/5
      As with all newspapers these days readership, advertising and circulation are becoming a thing of the past. However you really know trouble is in the works when the body of a top Editor for the New York Globe is found murdered in the very newsroom where he works. And not just any murder, he is killed with a spike to the chest, in fact the very same spike he has used from the beginning to kill the hopes and dreams of other journalists by killing their story. The paper assigns one of their own, Jude Hurley a very cynical reporter who is not sure what he has gotten himself into. He has to form a bond with the NYPD detective assigned to the case, a very young and ambitious Priscilla Bollingsworth. The problem is that there are an abundance of suspects. As Jude follows his instincts he finds there is much dirt under the respectability of the paper and its Old guard. While he has built a loose rapport with Detective Bollingsworth, Jude finds himself in some very serious and deep problems. Jude finds himself as one of the suspects and he has to come up with an plan to force the killer from hiding. Is it the secretary, the gossip columnist or even one of the journalists that he deals with every day? As bodies start piling up all killed in strange and unusual ways, Jude finds that his questions have put him in the sites of the killer. Will Jude win the day and turn in one of the best stories ever told or will he be the next death, tune in to find out who is responsible for this ever growing list of dead, the Who's Who of the New York Globe.I had trouble following the story, the characters did not have the depth that you sometimes see. I thought we would see more interplay between Jude and Priscilla which did not occur. There were some pretty good scenes with Jude and some of his friends and when he is in danger the descriptions were all too real. The killer used interesting ways to do away with his victims, I would guess Karma would come into play. Not one of my favorites but still a good read.
    • 3/5
      AS a mystery, ok, not so much. The plot is a bit unfinished, and doesn't really hold together all that well (and the murderer makes no sense).As a roman a clef about the New York Times, definitely amusing. While some of the pseudonyms are obvious (Jimmy Pomegranate? Come on.) it's definitely fun to try to guess who he's talking about and wonder how accurate the description is.
    • 4/5
      I didn't do right by this book, reading it in 15 minute bursts as I dropped off to sleep. It was a lot funnier than I was able to properly appreciate since I was half asleep through too much of it, coming to as the book crashed down - again - on my nose. Fun newspaper stuff!