Black & White and Dead All Over
By John Darnton
An editor is murdered. And the suspect? That would be all the reporters.
ANY GREAT newsroom worth its salt is an ink-stained asylum, a toxic landfill, a college of cranks and a museum of misfits who never learn, despite years of broken promises to weary spouses, that they will not be home for dinner.
I've had the luck of seven newspaper jobs in my career and every one has been an unhealthful and joyful addiction, the cluttered newsrooms memorable for their dishwater lighting, stained carpets, asbestos particulate and pathologically committed journalists with tiny work spaces, huge egos and even larger insecurities. And that was before the industry tanked, leaving herds of highly educated dinosaurs bemoaning their demise, pointing fingers at idiot owners and ungrateful readers and confronting their undeniable lack of marketable job skills. They are naturals, in other words, for dark comic fiction.
In his deliciously sharp, wise and hilarious new novel, “Black & White and Dead All Over," John Darnton ("Neanderthal," “The Darwin Conspiracy"), a longtime scribe and editor for the New York Times, has created a menagerie of newsroom wags working for the fictional New York Globe -- and turned a serial killer loose to feast upon their sagging, pasty flesh.
In real newsrooms, unfortunately, true characters are a dying breed, with more minivan bores racing home to microwave frozen organic victuals for the kiddies. But the likes of Hurley are still around: a prisoner of the chase, a zombie under the spell of Page 1 paydirt. To make the adventure all the more delectable, Darnton gives us an attractive NYPD female homicide detective who's trying to make her bones on the case. She quickly realizes that she and Hurley can help each other grab the prize, but they'd better move fast.
“Black & White and Dead All Over" isn't flawless. With so many suspects and parallel conspiracies, Darnton's roman clef bogs down at times, can get a little too cute and doesn't always satisfy when it comes to the payoffs (though the setups are delicious). Non-journalists may not absorb the full genius of Darnton's skewering of current and former colleagues, including plagiarists and self-important failures, nor will they fully appreciate that this book is at its heart a love letter to an endangered species.
