Kit Frazier Scoop

Scoop

Kit Frazier

Midnight Ink, Sept 2006, $13.95, 432 pp.

ISBN 0738709158

While an intern at the Austin Journal, Cauley Mackinnon made the mistake of sleeping with her boss, which is why she now writes obituaries at the Austin Sentinel. When her good friend former Dallas Cowboy Scooter Barnes calls her because he threatens to commit suicide, she rushes over to stop him. She is stunned to see a SWAT team there. Cauley talks to Scooter and persuades him put his gun down.

From that heroic moment on everyone wants to talk with Cauley about what she discussed inside the building with Scooter, but she reveals nothing. When she stops for gas an earless thug with a gun demands she tell him or else. FBI Special Agent Tom Logan and Customs Agent John Fiennes desperately need to know what he told her. Still she holds her confidence to herself until Scooter is found dead by Cauley. His parents insist it is a homicide not a suicide; she agrees and begins investigating not realizing that soon she will be faced with the same life and death choices her late friend made.

SCOOP is a fantastic journalist investigative thriller that methodically yet fascinatingly shows the reader how a reporter conducts an investigation. The audience will empathize with the spunky offbeat heroine tries to do the right thing by her dead friend and his parents. The SCOOP on Kit Francis is that she deserves an Agatha nomination or this delightfully charming and realistic mystery.

Harriet Klausner