Eyes of the Innocent

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Carter Ross, the sometimes-dashing investigative reporter for the Newark Eagle-Examiner, is back, and reporting on the latest tragedy to befall Newark, New Jersey, a fast-moving house fire that kills two boys.With the help of the paper’s newest intern, a bubbly blonde known as “Sweet Thang,” Carter finds the victims’ mother, Akilah Harris, who spins a tale of woe about a mortgage rate reset that forced her to work two jobs and leave her young boys without child care. Carter turns in a front-page feature, but soon discovers Akilah isn’t what she seems. And neither is the fire. When Newark councilman Windy Byers is reported missing, it launches Carter into the sordid world of urban house-flipping and Jersey-style political corruption. With his usual mix of humor, compassion, and street smarts, Carter is soon calling on some of his friends—gay Cuban sidekick Tommy Hernandez, T-shirt-selling buddy Tee Jamison, and on-and-off girlfriend Tina Thompson—for help in tracking down the shadowy figure behind it all.Brad Parks’s debut, Faces of the Gone, won the Shamus Award and Nero Award for Best American Mystery. It was heralded as an engaging mix of Harlan Coben and Janet Evanovich. Now Parks solidifies his place as one of the brightest new talents in crime fiction with this authentic, entertaining thriller.From Publishers WeeklyAfter a house fire kills two young brothers in a rundown Newark, N.J., neighborhood, Carter Ross of the Newark Eagle-Examiner gets the word to write yet another story about the dangers of space heaters in Parks's enjoyable second mystery featuring the street-smart investigative reporter (after 2009's Faces of the Gone). To complicate a routine assignment, Carter must take beautiful, spacey intern Lauren McMillan (aka "Sweet Thang") to the scene of the tragedy. In a tense confrontation with Akilah Harris, the mother of the two boys, Lauren displays an unexpected talent for getting her to talk. Akilah's hard-luck story could be front-page news if true, but when it begins to fall apart and then dovetails with the disappearance of veteran council member Wendell "Windy" A. Byers Jr., things get hot quickly. Once again, Parks, a former Washington Post reporter, deftly brings the personalities and dynamics of a modern-day city newsroom to life. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. From BooklistA house burns. Two children die. A newspaper reporter finds the house documents have disappeared from the courthouse. The investigation begins, and Parks and his hero, Newark newsman Carter Ross, show us that police and newshound procedures have much in common: knocking on doors, working the phones, staring at dusty paper until the eyes burn. Like other fictional star reporters—Gregory Mcdonald’s Fletch and Laura Lippmann’s reporter-turned-PI Tess Monaghan—Ross must rout the villains without a badge to flash or the power of officialdom. Also like them, he’s a reporter “type”; a veneer of cynicism covers a layer of mush, which in turn covers a core of titanium. The revelations involve the subprime mortgage swindle, a city councilman and his cookie, and a moneyman who knows which politicians are for sale. The novel reads like a bit of investigative journalism: told in reporter’s prose, with dollops of humor, suspense, and violence. Like his creator, Ross is aware of the pain in the things he writes about. He’s also aware that that makes for darned good reporting. --Don Crinklaw