Nowhere to Run

July 28, 2003
CBS veteran Clark (Nobody Knows) brings a network news producer's sensibility to the story of a newsroom in the throes of anthrax-induced pandemonium. In quick chapters that jump-cut among numerous points of view, Clark narrates a nerve-racking week in the life of KEY News producer Annabelle Murphy. When Annabelle's medical correspondent, Dr. John Lee, holds up what he says is a vial of weapons-grade anthrax on morning TV, panic ensues: executives call management meetings, security agents peer into spy cameras, the FBI snoops around and doctors dispense Cipro. Lee's anthrax proves to be table sugar—but then Annabelle's colleague Jerome Henning, who's quietly been writing a nasty tell-all, lands in the hospital and quickly succumbs to the disease. A food-service worker is murdered next, and another person is found dead. Annabelle frets about Jerome's manuscript and tries to figure out what's going on, all the while unwittingly carrying anthrax spores in her coat pocket. Who needs terrorists when there are so many office villains around? There's the aging, control-freak male bigwig, the driven female executive, the insider-trading business reporter and the cocaine-sniffing theater reviewer, to name a few. Clark's spare prose depends on brisk dialogue and rapid-fire action sequences, and her stereotypical characters are pastiches of a few simple virtues, flaws and guilty secrets. Still, the yarn entertains with a little network gossip and a short lesson in bio-terror, all seen through the eyes of a network producer who starts out fearing for her job and ends up fearing for her life. Agent, Laura Dail.

August 1, 2003
Annabelle Murphy is married to a New York City firefighter struggling with post-traumatic stress syndrome following 9/11. A mother of young twins, she also produces a medical segment on a morning news program at Key News. Her job and reputation go on the line when Dr. John Lee, the network's medical expert, waves a vial of anthrax on national television and tells how easy it was to procure. When the FBI and HAZMAT arrive, they find that the vial contains only sugar, but traces of anthrax are present in Annabelle's office. Then a longtime friend and colleague dies of anthrax poisoning. In her sixth novel, Clark (Nobody Knows) mixes a really topnotch mystery with psychological suspense; action, not character development, is the key ingredient here. A CBS producer and writer, Clark has the inside scoop on the workings of a national broadcasting company and accurately conveys the lasting effects of 9/11 on the psyche of New York City residents. Her novel is impossible to put down. For all fiction collections.-Jo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L., OH

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2003
When we last visited the KEY News desk in " Nobody Knows" (2002), there was a serial rapist on the loose and an overzealous reporter dying to break the story. This time the focus changes from the overzealous reporter to a medical correspondent who, in researching a story on the threat of anthrax, shocks his coworkers and audience by producing a vial of the vile stuff and saying, "If I can get my hands on this, just think what the terrorists might do." Panic ensues, of course, and is further inflamed when it's discovered that someone replaced the real poison powder with mere confectioner's sugar. Where, then, is the anthrax? Annabelle Murphy, the medical segment producer, knew nothing of the prank or the theft but finds herself in hot water when trace spores of anthrax are found in her office. Knowing that her coworkers, the feds, and the police will turn this investigation into a publicity op, Annabelle takes it upon herself to uncover the truth. Clark has perfected the lightweight suspense novel, where in classic Christie fashion, everyone is a potential suspect. Harmless (unlike anthrax), timely, and downright fun.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)