A young woman who works at the "Washington Tribune" is strangled in the office building. another young woman who works in the media is found dead. Is there a serial killer?
Joe wilcox, who has worked at the "Tribune" for years tries to push the idea of a serial killer.
Joe's daughter works in TV and he is concerned about her safety.
In the middle of all of this Joe's brother who has been in a mental institution for 40 years shows up and pushes his way into Joe's family and not everyone is comfortable about this.

The book opens with the murder of a Washington Trib employee being investigated. Then there is the murder of a second young woman also in the media business. Joe Wilcox, a veteran reporter for the Tribune is investigating the murders. Joe has his own agenda to reporting these murders.
There are no surprises and the ending is quite dull.

No Mac or Annabell in this one. Joe is a newspaper reporter & his daughter is a TV reporter. They are always looking for story leads! Joe decides to add to the news after several murders, including one at his paper, and his brother tracking him down (he has been in a mental ward for forty years). Joe fake news is revealed & he has to leave the paper. The newspaper editor comitted the murder at the paper. The brother murdered his neighbor & confessed on air. The third murder was unsolved.

Great characters, great storytelling and suspenseful with all the twists at the end that makes you race to finish the book.

Had a hard time with this one I had to take a break in between reads. Still it kept me guessing until the end.

Getting old

Joe has been a reporter for 23 years, but he is not a go getter anymore. His daughter has become a great news person on tv. He feels left out and discouraged. A murder has happened, and Joe is told to get some fire. His brother turns up after 40 years, and this is just the beginning of many mistakes.

I have read a couple of Margaret Truman's Capital Crimes Novels and liked them. This one was hard to put down, but not my favorite of the ones I have read. That might have been because none of the characters were likable. Joe Wilcox was a star reporter for the Washington Tribune and now finds his career fading and younger journalists taking over. In a last stab for glory, he willfully fabricates a story that a serial killer is on the loose in Washington, DC, targeting young, beautiful women in the news business. Though the police are certain the 2 murders are unrelated Joe starts a panic with the articles he writes in the paper. His willingness to lie to create a front-page story is abominable. His daughter, Roberta, is a TV newswoman, and it was awful to me that they would keep secrets from each other so they could be the one to get the scoop out first and make names for themselves. Father and daughter profess to love each other, but deceit goes both ways. I will say a twist at the ending had me surprized.

Two stars sums it up. Writing is stilted. I like this series for its location and the insider knowledge of the city, but this one was a snoozer.

Actual rating 2.5

The story is a little dated. It was beginning to get a bit repetitive, but a twist around page 150 kept me interested.

I had never read a Margaret Truman mystery, and I started out liking this one quite a bit. The main character's struggle to come up with a "big story" at the end of his career seemed realistic, and when the murder occurs right at his newspaper, the possibility seemed plausible. His disappointment in his own career is exacerbated by the arrogance of a hotshot young reporter eager to show him up and his ambivalence about his daughter's growing success as a TV reporter. Add to that his relationship with a detective, and there's the making of a good story. But then Truman adds one more plot twist after another, each more implausible than the first. I won't say more because I don't want to spoil the story, but family history plus unethical journalistic practices get Joe Wilcox into increasingly complex dilemmas. The ending seems almost too good to be true considering his questionable actions. First and last Margaret Truman mystery for me.

Nice, interesting mystery although a little dated in parts. Technology has advanced quite a bit in 12 years but I still enjoyed the book.

Not her strongest effort but a fair read. A few twists that I didn't see coming and, in my opinion, a weak ending.