Review: CRIME BEAT GIRL by Geri L. Dreiling

Graphic Image designed by Sandra Lopez

A girl is dead. A boy is locked up. Can Debbie Bradley discover the truth before more lives are lost...maybe even her own?

A series of deadly shootings. An outbreak of stolen cars. When journalist Debbie Bradley returns home to St. Louis, the summer crime wave has started. And she's in the center: A witness, a reporter, a target.

Debbie's reasons for leaving behind her promising career in Washington D.C. were complicated. Her mother, a prominent lawyer, was diagnosed with cancer. Her engagement was cooling. When she got offered a job in St. Louis that she hadn't been looking for, Debbie recognized an opportunity. Or an escape.

But she didn't expect to come home and see a girl die. Debbie never planned to investigate a boy behind bars. And she didn't anticipate colliding with hostile cops and wary politicians.As her work gains attention, Debbie gathers enemies. Will her assignment to cover the St. Louis crime beat be her last?

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Excerpt

Debbie noticed that her phone had gone quiet. Either she was going in the right direction or her app had crashed. Again. She took one hand off the steering wheel and adjusted her glasses as she peered at the small screen. She put the phone back down and tucked a strand of her thick, wavy hair the color of a roasted chestnut shell back into her tight ponytail. Maybe it's time to turn back, she thought. But a retreat wouldn't get her to the Teen Alliance interview.

She needed to focus on the assignment. It was easy enough--interviewing the executive director of a nonprofit. Teen Alliance was an organization trying to give kids from families with little means healthy ways to spend their free time. It would be a puff piece, and although light, fluffy, positive stories weren't really her strength, Sam thought it would be a way for Debbie to get into the groove of magazine reporting, as well as help her grow her contact list of local movers and shakers.

The repeated blare of a car horn shook Debbie out of her reverie.

She turned her head toward the sound that pierced the eerie quiet. It was coming from a blue, rust-pocked pickup truck driven by a silver-haired man. The truck was headed toward her, traveling in its lane, and yet the driver was pointing at Debbie and then pointing at his rearview mirror.

Instinctively, Debbie looked into her own rearview. That's when she spotted a red Audi convertible weaving wildly in and out of her lane--and the truck's lane--and was not slowing down.

Debbie lurched her steering wheel abruptly to the right. The oncoming truck veered in the opposite direction, leaving as much room as possible for the erratic luxury car barreling down the roadway and any driver unfortunate enough to be sharing the space.

The out-of-control Audi swerved toward the truck, then sharply careened the opposite way, its front aimed at Debbie's car. Debbie's heart lurched into her throat. The Audi's tires squealed. The nose of the Audi turned sharply once again and clipped the back end of the truck before jumping the curb.

Screams rang out. A crowd of teens who had been gathered outside a tiny market--the sort that sells junk food, liquor, and lottery tickets in places where chain grocery stores refuse to operate--was in the path of the Audi that was no longer being guided by its driver.

Those on the edges of the group scattered like birds after the loud boom of a gunshot, darting out of the car's path. Those who were in the center, the unlucky ones, flew into the air when the car connected with human flesh.

Debbie slammed on her brakes, threw her car into park, and grabbed her phone to dial 911.

The Audi finally came to a stop after the front end and hood smashed through the display window of the market. Customers still clutching red plastic baskets and a worker wearing a green apron stumbled out the front door, dazed and confused.

Debbie jumped out of her car. There were people broken and bleeding on the ground. Some wailed. One teen who had been tossed in the air and then left crumpled in a heap on the earth looked at Debbie with a vacant gaze, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.

As Debbie ran toward the Audi, rage filled her chest.

She flung open the car's door with all the strength that anger fuels. The driver, slumped over a deployed airbag, moaned. His feet barely reached the pedals, and his tear-streaked cheeks were round with the baby fat he hadn't lost.

He was just a child.

***

My review: Debbie Bradley was a reporter looking to make a difference and seek justice. After a great gig in DC, she was back in her hometown working the small press. On her way to an interview, she becomes a witness and participant of a car accident, which led to her editor giving Debbie the new role of tracking the crime in St. Louis and calling it “Crime Beat Girl.”

The reader soon dives deep into an array of judiciaries, politics, protocols, and data. Debbie certainly has a nose for sniffing out a good story and getting to the bottom of things. As she looks more into the young boy who was being charged for the car wreck, one statement struck her: This was no accident. What really happened then? “Who were the good guys and who were the bad guys?”

Debbie has a knack for showing up at every crime scene with her notebook, camera phone, and a truck load of questions. She was the Crime Beat Girl in action. It’s an interesting gig that hooks the reader, keeping pace as she follows several crimes in the story. She was “working on nothing and everything,” and, with the help of her lawyer mother, she can dig further into the truths. I enjoyed the loving squabbles between mother and daughter—2 stubborn, smart, and fiercely independent women. The court scenes can be a little dry and tedious, but, overall, this was an interesting ride along a plucky reporter.

My rating: 3 stars