WWW.WEDNESDAY

 WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

PS I can no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up.

1. What are you currently reading? Golden Girl: The Story of Jessica Savitch by Alanna Nash. Jessica Savitch was a favorite of mine, back in the long-ago 80s when we only had three major news networks (and sometimes PBS) and two network news casts each day. She was so very good on camera. (Here she is on the Today Show.) She projected cool, sophistication, and control. I felt terrible when her career began to unravel and then suddenly she died in a car crash. She was 36.*

I first read this book when it initially came out in 1988, shortly after death. It fascinated me because the real Jessica was so different from her on-air persona. I picked it up again recently after Barbara Walters died. With all the talk of Walters as a trail blazer, I wondered how Jessica could have been forgotten. In 1982 she was named America's fourth most trusted anchor, the only woman in the top 5. 

It's compelling and heartbreaking and I don't want it to end because I know how it ends. RIP, Jessica.

2. What did you recently finish reading? Revenge Tour by Mike Lupica. Everything is coming together nicely for Melanie Joan Hall. Her historical romance novels have become so successful that Hollywood wants to turn them into a miniseries. Her new business manager is her new lover, and is making her very happy in both his roles. So why is someone trying to ruin it all for her, and in such a menacing way? She's suddenly begun receiving blackmail threats, threatening to expose her as a plagiarist. 

She hires Boston PI Sunny Randall to get to the bottom of this before Melanie Joan's empire comes tumbling down. The stakes are raised suddenly higher when people around Melanie Joan start getting dead.

It was an interesting premise to set a mystery against. Sunny is a straight shooter, in every sense of the word, and has a hard time serving and protecting a client she isn't sure she can trust. Is Melanie Joan just the victim of a crazy crank, as she insists? Or did she do something crappy to someone in her hazy past, and now that someone is seeking revenge? And can Sunny figure it out in time? (I guessed who the baddie was and had a nice time doing so.)

3. What will read next? I don't know.

 

*It's not by design but this week's WWW is illustrated by another blonde heroine of mine who died tragically at 36.