BOOK REVIEW + $10 Gift Card GIVE AWAY - The Anchor by Kevin R. Doyle
The Anchor
by Kevin R. Doyle
GENRE: Mystery
The Anchor: Jen has toiled away in television news, just waiting for a big break. And at the same time she finally gets a shot at the promotion opportunity she’s waited years for, head anchor for the nightly newscast, an unseen, shadowy man is desperate for her to notice him. When messages and well wishes don’t do the trick, her mysterious admirer intends to do anything necessary to make Jen a success and snare her attention, even if it means attacking her fiancé and killing off her competition.
Excerpt:
One of the first pieces of advice Lew Jacobs had given her upon promoting her to the morning desk had been to toughen up as much as possible.
And to do it right away.
“You’re going to get people calling, e-mailing, and tweeting in. Hell, we still have a working fax machine in the office for people to complain that way. Don’t worry about the Contact page on the website. The only folks who use that are the ones who want to say how much they like what you’re doing. But you know the old saying about restaurant service, right?”
Jen had given him a blank look. The boss had continued.
“A satisfied customer will tell one or two people what a great meal he had at your place. A dissatisfied one will tell everyone he knows what a shithole operation you have. Sorry for the profanity, kid, but that’s the best way to put it.”
Jen had nodded, still not sure of his overall point.
“When it comes to the station website, the ones who take the time to type in all those required fields, plus muck around with matching those damned security words at the bottom, are so patient because they want to go on and on about how much they love your show or a story you did. But the ones who are pissed at you, and that’s going to be the overwhelming majority, they can’t wait that long. They have to fire off their opinions as quick as possible. And believe me, they will. You could do an entire broadcast around the theme of puppies and rainbows, and some nitwit will call in, complaining that your material is too dark.”
Before her promotion to the desk, Jen had worked as a general assignment reporter for a little over three years. She’d thought she understood the phenomenon of irate, dissatisfied viewers venting at the station. But listening to Jacobs, she’d realized that what waited for her was a whole new level of said phenomenon.
And she assumed he knew what he was talking about. Jen wasn’t sure how old her boss was, but considering that he’d begun with the station as a reporter himself back in the mid-seventies, he had to be somewhere up in the higher range of his sixties.
Jacobs was a dinosaur in more ways than his age, however. A legend both at the station and in the Riverside community overall, he was one of those rare news people ending his career, decades later, at the same place where he started. He was damned good at his job, and Jen figured that somewhere over the years, some bigger stations must have recruited him in larger markets, but for some reason, he’d elected to stay here in central Kansas.
It took no time at all for her to realize how on the nose Jacobs’s cautions had been. Sometimes, people would call in or tweet, full of umbrage that Jen had dared to include on the Monday morning news the results of the NFL game the day before when their favorite team had been shellacked.
The tone something along the lines of how dare she perpetuate such a demoralizing story.
Now, seeing a message appear five minutes after the show closed, she hurried to trace back over every story and segment they’d done, even the ones piped in from the national network, looking for something she’d done wrong. With the possibility of Karyn’s nighttime slot opening soon, Jen knew she couldn’t be doing anything that would cause her to lose points in management’s eyes.
Her initial mental scan not uncovering anything, she mentally said the hell with it and opened the message. She didn’t recognize the sender’s address, but maybe it was something innocuous.
Even congratulatory.
Then again, maybe not.
The message contained a single sentence, done in all caps.
I THOUGHT I DID YOU A FAVOR. DID YOU REALLY HAVE TO SIC THE
COPS ON ME?
This is my third book by this author and
he’s quickly becoming an auto buy author! Last month I read books from two of
her other series. Double Frame which is part of his “Sam
Quinton” series And the Devil Walks Away which is the third book in his “The
Group” series. Both were SO good, I jumped at the chanced to read
another book from this phenomenal author and I am not disappointed!
In The Anchor we meet Jen who is on the brink of
achieving her big break. She’s worked for years for this promotion and can’t
wait to be the head anchor for the nightly newscast. Little does she know; she has
a mysterious admirer desperate for her attention. When she fails to respond. He
will stop at nothing to make her a success and her attention. Even if it means
killing off his competition, her fiancé.
The characters are well developed and what I
love most about this author is their ability to weave a complex story while
moving from crime thriller to psychological thriller. His ability to blend
these two genres seamlessly makes for an intriguing read full of red herrings,
twist, and turns you won’t see coming. His ability to describe the circumstances
has me immersed in the story as if I am one of the characters. The supporting
cast of characters blend well and add depth to the story. I was so engaged I didn’t
want the book to end!
I hope this book becomes a series; I’d love to
see Jen in another adventure. Highly recommended.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Author website: www.kevindoylefiction.com
A
high-school teacher, former college instructor, and fiction writer, Kevin R.
Doyle is the author of numerous short horror stories. He’s also written three
crime thrillers, The Group, When You Have to Go There, and And the
Devil Walks Away, and one horror novel, The Litter. In the last few
years, he’s begun working on the Sam Quinton private eye series, published by
Camel Press. The first Quinton book, Squatter’s Rights, was nominated
for the 2021 Shamus award for Best First PI Novel. The second book, Heel
Turn, was released in March of 2021, while the third in the series, Double
Frame, came out in March of 2022.
Email: kevinrossdoyle@gmail.com
Facebook
address: www.facebook.com/kevindoylefiction
Amazon
paperback and Kindle
Smashwords:
Smashwords – The Anchor – a
book by Kevin R. Doyle
The
Anchor by Kevin R. Doyle | eBook | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)
The
Anchor eBook by Kevin R. Doyle - EPUB | Rakuten Kobo United States
GIVEAWAY INFORMATION:
Night to Dawn Magazine and Books LLC will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Good morning. Appreciate the nice review and the exposure. I'm going to be on the road most of the day, but will check back later on tonight to respond to any comments.
ReplyDeleteI love the cover and think the book looks good.
ReplyDeleteThank you for hosting Kevin and for the lovely review on his book. Night to Dawn Magazine & Books.
ReplyDelete