THE MORNING SHOW MURDERS
Al Roker and Dick Lochte
Delacorte Press
Mystery
ISBN: 9780385343688
Billy Blessing is riding high. He's good-looking, successful and free to play the field. He's also the regular host of a cooking segment, Blessing's in the Kitchen, on the popular morning show “Wake Up, America!” and the owner of a profitable Manhattan bistro. Everything is most definitely going his way. However, there exists a thorn in his side by the name of Rudy Gallagher, his executive producer and general nemesis. Billy has plenty of reasons to dislike Rudy: at the moment, Rudy is dating Billy's ex-girlfriend and forces him to appear on a nonsensical reality show. The man loves to make Billy’s life miserable. So it is, when Rudy ends up dead, all signs point to Billy as the culprit.
While Rudy was a general pain, he was certainly not enough of one to inspire murder in Billy. Unfortunately, after a run-in that morning over a new cooking reality show, “Food School 101,” Rudy dies from eating poisoned coq au vin from Billy's restaurant. Now, the police are closing down the establishment and rooting through every aspect of Billy’s life. Fortunately for Billy, he is not the only one who might have wanted Rudy dead. Such that he was, Rudy made enemies wherever he went, and there were any number of people in the cut-throat world of morning television who might have had enough of his high-handed ways.
However, the people who might have held a grudge against Rudy extend beyond the circle of morning television. Any number of women who are listed in his little black book and rated according to their looks and sexual prowess may have had a problem with Rudy. He has also just come back from an investigative reporting trip to Afghanistan, bringing back much international intrigue with him. How do you begin when there are more people who wanted the victim dead than those who didn't?
Rudy isn't the only victim, though. When the killer strikes again, it is obvious that someone is setting up Billy to take the fall. If he wants to hold on to everything that is near and dear to him --- particularly his freedom --- Billy better switch his oven up to high heat and get to the bottom of the mysteries and scandals that are swirling around him. But as Billy gets closer and closer to the truth behind Rudy's murder, he moves from the scary realm of viable suspects to the even scarier world of moving target. Someone wants him out of the way --- and they aren't playing around.
THE MORNING SHOW MURDERS takes us behind the scenes of the cheery world of morning television where we learn that appearances can be deceiving and the biggest television personalities also have big egos to match. It would be interesting to know how much of this book is fact and how much is fiction. Al Roker is obviously eminently qualified to give us the picture of what goes on behind the cameras as well as in front of them after all his years in the business, and he works superbly with Dick Lochte, author of SLEEPING DOG, in this thrilling tale of lights, cameras and murder.
--- Reviewed by Amie Taylor
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