Live, Local, and Dead (A Vermont Radio Mystery)

Author:    Nikki Knight

Genre:     Mystery/Politics

Hardcover; Digital Book

ISBN #:    9781643859453

Crooked Lane Books

304 Pages

$26.99; $13.99 Amazon

February 8, 2022

⭐

In a fit of anger, radio DJ Jaye Jordan blows a snowman's head off with a Revolutionary War-style musket.  But the corpse that stumbles out is all too human.  Jaye thought life would be quieter when she left New York City and bought a tiny Vermont radio station.  But now, Edwin Anger -- the ranting and raving radio talk show host who Jaye recently fired -- lies dead in the snow.  And the Edwin Anger fans who protested his dismissal are sure she killed him. 

To clear her name, Jaye must find the real killer, as if she doesn't have her hands full running the radio station.  DJing her all-request love song show, and shuffling tween daughter Ryan to and from school.  It doesn't make matters easier that the governor -- Jaye's old crush -- arrived on the scene before the musket smoke cleared.  Fortunately, Jaye has allies.  If you count the flatulent moose that lives in the transmitter shack, and Neptune, the giant gray cat that lives at the station.

If Jaye can turn the tables on the devious killer, she and the governor may get to make some sweet, sweet music together.  But if she can't, she'll be off the air...permanently.

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

Jaye Jordan moved to Vermont so that her daughter could live closer to her father David who lives in New Hampshire.  She's bought a radio station, and has changed programming to eliminate Edwin Anger and now plays late-night requested love songs.  Followers of Edwin aren't happy, and have taken to protesting outside the station (which is also her home).  So Jaye decides to teach them a lesson, taking one man's musket and blowing the head off a snowman in the town square.  (Never mind that there are people there).

When the body of Edwin is discovered inside the snowman, the sheriff wants to know who killed him.  He doesn't believe Jaye had anything to do with it, so she's not worried.  But now she's taken with the state governor, who's just as taken with her.  To watch her romance heat up, she needs to find out who's a stone-cold killer...

Oh, my, my, my.  We have yet another book of thinly-veiled personal politics masquerading as a cozy mystery.  This it does not do.  In fact, with all the Republican-bashing throughout the book, I wonder how the far-left leaning author could even sit up straight while writing.  This book is so filled with hate speech against the right that I found it ludicrous that the protagonist would even say that she 'didn't want hate speech on her program.'  Seriously?

It's not even a cozy mystery.  Yes, there is a dead body, but the police investigate everything -- and we all know in a cozy that the protagonist is right there with them, picking up clues along the way.  This book is: 1) a political rant; 2) a romance; and 3) with a murder thrown in so it can be labeled a cozy.  Which it is not, with all the foul language.

I read to escape everyday life, everyday politics.  And yes, I would have felt the same if this were a right-leaning book.  Politics have no place in a cozy mystery, especially not the author's own views.  Also, the writing was strange, to say the least.  It was as if we were reading the protagonist's thoughts as she went through day-to-day life, It might have been alright if I could even like the protagonist.  But I could not.  I couldn't even finish the book.  Unfortunately, I will not be reading any more of this author's books.

I was given an advance copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley but this in no way influenced my review.

https://www.amazon.com/Live-Local-Vermont-Radio-Mystery/dp/1643859455/ref

Goodreads:    https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4539729553

More on Nikki Knight's Books:    https://www.fantasticfiction.com/k/nikki-knight/

Before Chappaquiddick: The Untold Story of Mary Jo Koepechne and the Kennedy Brothers

Author:  William C. Kashatus
Genre:   Biography

Hardcover; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9781640122697
Potomac Books
248 Pages
$29.95; $28.45 Amazon
June 1, 2020

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

On July 18, 1969, a car driven by Senator Edward M. Kennedy plunged off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, off the coast of Cape Cod.  Mary Jo Kopechne, a twenty-eight-year-old former staffer for Kennedy's brother Robert, died in the crash.  The scandal that followed demeaned Koepechne's reputation and scapegoated her for Ted Kennedy's inability to run for the presidency instead of acknowedging her as an innocent victim in a tragedy that took her life.

William C. Kashatus's biography of Mary Jo Kopechne illuminates the life of a politically committed young woman who embodied the best ideals of the sixties.  Arriving in Washington in 1963. Kopechne soon joined the staff of Robert F. Kennedy and committed herself to his vision of compassion for the underprivileged, social idealism tempered by political realism, and a more humane nation.  Kashatus details her work as an energetic and trusted staffer who became one of the famed Boiler Room Girls at the heart of RFK's presidential campaign.  Shattered by his assassination, Kopechne took a break from politics before returning as a consultant.  It was at a reunion of the Boiler Room Girls that she accepted a ride from Edward Kennedy -- a decision she would pay for with her life.

The untold -- and long overdue -- story of a promising life cut short, Before Chappaquiddick tells the human side of one of the most memorable scandals of the 1960s.

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

I would hazard a guess that anyone who knows who Mary Jo Kopechne is, probably knows that she died one night in July when then-Senator Edward M. Kennedy's car plunged off the side of a bridge.  Since then, there has been speculation and conspiracies as to how and why this happened, when Kennedy himself survived.

People have said that he drowned her because she knew too much about the Kennedys; that she was having an affair with Ted (Edward); etc., but I tend to believe it was merely an accident, and although many will disagree with me, I seriously can't believe that someone as high-profile as the senator was and still is, that he would purposely kill a young woman and then just walk away...

This book begins far earlier than Mary Jo's conception, beginning with her grand-parentage and explaining the type of people that her family was and where they came from:  a set of working class immigrants who came to this country to make it a better place and give themselves a better life.  Her family worked in the mines, which even now is dangerous and hard work, causing all manner of health problems.

But Mary Jo was born to Joe and Gwen Kopechne, their only child.  As such, she was pampered and loved, given every opportunity to make something of her life that was better than her parents'.  After all, isn't that what we as parent are supposed to do?  Want something better for our children and give them the chance to be better, to grow?  Joe and Gwen were no different than other parents, and they supported Mary Jo in whatever she wanted to do.

What she wanted to do -- and succeeded in doing so -- was go into politics and work for Senator John F. Kennedy while he made a run for president.  She worked hard, she worked long hours, and she pushed her way into becoming important for his campaign.  When JFK was elected, Mary Jo couldn't have been happier.  But then, unexpectedly, he was assassinated while driving through Dallas, and she was crushed.  It shattered her world.  

When she recovered, she went to work for his brother Robert, who was once John's attorney general, and worked longer hours and like a whirlwind to help him in his own campaign for the presidency.  But then again, RFK was assassinated, and Mary Jo's life once again crumbled to the ground; she had utter adulation for the Kennedys, and this truly devastated her, while she insisted she would never work for Ted, while other of the Boiler Room girls (Robert's staff) did so.

Now you can say that she was having affairs with these men, but you'd be wrong.  Robert was happily married to Ethel, and while John had a roving eye, it never roved in her direction.  Her zeal was to help the Democratic party and her loyalty was to the Kennedy brothers.  Unfortunately, the third time tragedy struck, it stuck hard and ended everything.

Senator Edward Kennedy never wanted to be president.  He didn't have the charisma of his brother John, and he didn't have the determination of his brother Robert.  He was the youngest Kennedy, and the last of four brothers (Joseph, Jr. was killed in WWII).  He'd lost three brothers and one sister at this point, and some say that he never recovered after Robert's death.  

It was a fateful night on Chappaquiddick when the accident occurred, and Ted made decisions that would change both his life and that of the Kopechne's forever.  Mary Jo's death never went away, and Ted threw himself into his work, playing a major part in getting laws passed that have benefited the American people, which included (but is not limited to) the COBRA health insurance provision; The Americans with Disabilities Act; and the Ryan White AIDS act.  You can say that Mary Jo's death left Ted a better person.

Now I am not praising Ted Kennedy at all; in fact, I've always believed that if he'd gotten help immediately she might have lived.  For myself, when John died so did my alliance to the Kennedys themselves.  And who knows what her life would have been?  Her death shattered her parents; it changed Ted.  Nevertheless, she left behind a legacy.  She was definitely a victim in this, perhaps someone who shouldn't have been there, perhaps willingly.  We will never know the truth.

But this book gives an interesting take on Mary Jo's presence; it delves into her life and brings forth the young girl she was and the young woman she became.  It gives her life meaning, and makes her more than just a victim on a late July night.  It tells the story of how she became the person she was, and gives her loss a heavy sadness.  I read this book hoping to gain insight into Mary Jo, and I was not disappointed in the outcome.  Highly recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Before-Chappaquiddick-Kopechne-Kennedy-Brothers/dp/1640122699/ref

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3438996673

Paw and Order

Author:  Spencer Quinn
Genre:  Mystery

Five Stars

In the seventh book in the brilliant New York Times bestselling mystery series, canine narrator Chet and P.I. Bernie journey to Washington, DC, and the dog-eat-dog world of our nation’s capital.

Stephen King has called Chet “a canine Sam Spade full of joie de vivre.” Robert B. Parker dubbed Spencer Quinn’s writing “major league prose.” Now the beloved team returns in another suspenseful novel that finds Chet sniffing around the capital city and using his street smarts to uncover a devilish plot.

Chet and Bernie pay a visit to Bernie’s girlfriend, Suzie Sanchez, a crack reporter living in far-off Washington, DC. She’s working on a big story she can’t talk about, but when her source, a mysterious Brit with possible intelligence connections, runs into trouble of the worst kind, Bernie suddenly finds himself under arrest.

Meanwhile Chet gets to know a powerful DC operative who may or may not have the goods on an ambitious politician. Soon Chet and Bernie are sucked into an international conspiracy, battling unfamiliar forces under the blinking red eyes of a strange bird that Chet notices from the get-go but seems to have slipped by everybody else. Most menacing of all is Barnum, a guinea pig with the fate of the nation in his tiny paws.

As Harry Truman famously quipped, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” Too bad he didn’t get to meet Chet!

********

For those of you who have never read any of these wonderful mysteries, Bernie Little is a private investigator, along with his partner, Chet.  Together they will take on practically any case, and they are very good at what they do.  There is an early scene in this book in which Chet and Bernie are at a barbeque restaurant full of bikers.  In the ensuing action, you discover that Bernie is no ordinary detective.  He is not only able to hold his own, he has wit, intelligence, speed and strength.  Chet is no slouch, either.

This book is different in that everything is told from Chet's point of view.  Did I mention that Chet is Bernie's dog?  He's an (almost) hundred pound K-9 dropout who is just as smart as Bernie, and not only protects him, actually helps him in his cases.

This time around, Bernie is a little bored with his routine, and missing his girlfriend Suzie Sanchez, who has moved to Washington, D.C. to further her career as a journalist.  So he decides, unannounced, to visit her, and when he arrives he sees a well-dressed man exiting the cottage where Suzie lives.  Obviously not happy about this turn of events, he confronts Suzie, whose tells him that the visior, Eben, a British national, is someone she is working with on a story.  When Eben is murdered shortly thereafter, Bernie is first arrested for the murder, then released just as quickly.  Now making it much more personal for Bernie, he is stunned when Eben's father hires him to find out who killed his son.

While ferreting out the fact from fiction, Chet and Bernie realize that between the politics and intrigue lies something that covers two continents and could possibly lead straight to the White House if Bernie doesn't figure it out in time.

Chet is his usual self, discovering things the humans don't find out until later, and trying to understand why Bernie acts as he does; but never questioning anything, because he knows that Bernie is the smartest person he's ever met.  What puzzles Chet the most is the strange bird that follows them everywhere, from Suzie's house to when they're on the road in Virginia.  Although he keeps trying to let Bernie know, he's oblivious to Chet's attempts to call his attention to it.  When Bernie finally sees what Chet sees, he realizes that Suzie has stumbled upon something that could put her in danger, and his highest priority is to keep her safe.

This is a highly enjoyable read, with Chet at his dogged best (pun intended), and Bernie hot on the trail of a cold-blooded killer; not willing to rest until he finds the answers he's looking for, no matter who the murderer is.  A highly recommended read, especially for those looking for something just a little bit different.

http://www.amazon.com/Paw-Order-Bernie-Mystery-Series/dp/1476703396/

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1024625287