Thomas Kies follows his Sue Grafton Award nominee, Shadow Hill, with another compelling mystery featuring Geneva Chase, a crime reporter whose drinking cost her a career. Now, the journalist is working freelance in her Connecticut hometown. It’s a call from the local paper, the Sheffield Post, that sends her on an investigation into escort services and dating for the rich and powerful.
Genie never liked Elliot Carlson, the smarmy anchor for a local television station. But, she was shocked when asked to report to his house where he was holding his wife hostage and holding off the local police. According to his wife and local media, they had all received a video purporting to show Carlson with a fifteen-year-old girl. He claims an escort service called the Whisper Room was blackmailing him.
As with all of Genie’s reports, there’s more to it than the surface story. Carlson isn’t the only one being blackmailed. And, the owners of the Whisper Room claim they’re not blackmailing anyone because their moneymaking business would implode. They have an app that makes the process seamless for their customers. They screen their customers, screen the young women involved, and would never hire a fifteen-year-old. But, Genie recognizes bodies that are showing up as several of the Whisper Room’s escorts.
Escorts. Wealthy men. Blackmail. Suicide and murder. The entire time Genie digs into this story, she can only worry about her sixteen-year-old ward, Caroline Bell. Caroline’s age and appearance makes her an ideal candidate for those blackmail videos.
Genie is an intriguing sleuth, a reporter desperately trying to hang on in a dying newspaper business. She’s desperately trying to stay sober, for Caroline’s sake more than anything. But, no matter how deeply she gets involved in an investigation, Geneva Chase is still a shrewd investigative journalist.
Readers who appreciate mysteries involving journalists and the news business should try Kies’ Geneva Chase books.
Thomas Kies’ website is https://thomaskiesauthor.com/
Whisper Room by Thomas Kies. Sourcebooks/Poisoned Pen Press, 2022. ISBN 9781728254579 (paperback), 288p.
FTC Full Disclosure – I received an ARC to review for a journal.
