Dead Air: A Cycling Murder Mystery: If that tagline doesn't grab your attention, the comic book-like cover most likely will. Mysteries are always fun, and when they're paired with a situation that is not normal or likely, they become intriguing just because of the entertainment value alone. Dead Air doesn't do too much to speed by the competition with wheels clicking, but it does provide some immediate gratification.
This book is Greg Moody's fifth in the Cycling Murder Mystery series, although for those who haven't read the other four, Moody gives enough background information for one to gain a sense of what happened in the other stories while not giving away too much. It's probably best to begin from square one, but I found myself reading this book first and wasn't too confused.
In Dead Air, Will Ross is a struggling widower after his wife was killed in a basketball bombing. Ross is now left with his child, Elena, as he attempts to overcome his lethargy, get back into the work force in the sports section at local television station TV6, and forget about the past. Elena is the one who has really lost the most - her mother but also her father, because Ross is hesitant to take on the job of father alone.
Ross has his mother-in-law Rose to look after the baby while he gets on his feet, and he finally goes back to his job, where a new anchor is trying to take over his position. Ross also gets a call from the man who killed his wife, and so he promptly calls his good friend Detective Whiteside back into the case to get to the bottom of things.
As all this is occurring, Ross is seduced by a manipulative reporter, Beth Freeman, who is working to get Ross fired from his job and pen an emotional (and faked) special on Ross' detachment from his daughter. Ross' friend Zorro, Clyde Zoromski, tries to warn him about Freeman's bitchiness, but Ross doesn't want a man to get between him and his sexual desires. All this and bombs, bombs, bombs.
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