Newspapers are dirty business, and not just from the ink. Revenge runs deep, mysteries abound, and this fictitious newspaper has more than its share of people turning up dead. An intrepid reporter, a determined detective, and a few crusty newspaper men will help figure out who killed the editor, and his lover/the gossip columnist, and the food editor ... and a few more potential victims.

This book was just a lot of fun! It reminded me of two classic movies, The Abominable Dr Phibes and Who's Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? The author may (or may not) take that as a compliment to his work. The mystery was well crafted with great characters and a wonderful setting. (One of my only disappointments was that I had no personal experience of a newspaper to make it even more enjoyable.) The quoted headlines, the descriptions of the different characters, and lightly veiled references

Sort of interesting plot and a look at the state of current journalism… but the author's penchant for cutesy names for his characters gets old. e.g., "Dumpster" is a reporter for a tabloid. "Outsalot" is a restaurant critic. Gets old fast.

A well known editor the the New York Globe is murdered just outside of his office. It looks as if he has been killed by a "spike" that is used to kill stories. The editor is known for his "spiking" many stories and has earned him the wrath of many of the Globe reporters.Priscilla Bollingsworth, the detective assigned to this case, finds that she has too many suspects to choose from and must find some way of narrowing down the numbers.The Globe assigns reporter Jude Hurley to cover the murder and...

A quick read, and a good one, although the writer's newspaper background is pretty obvious from the style. But that really works for the detail of the setting in funny stories about the modern day newspaper biz. Kinda have to wonder how the higher-ups at the NY Times felt about their opposite numbers in this novel.

After a promising start this murder mystery rapidly devolved into a tedious chore.The writing was dense, the plot was impenetrable and the characters were, for the most part uni-dimensional.Normally I don't mind whodunit stories but 'Black and White and Dead All Over' fell short of my expectations. There were too many suspects, not enough clues and when the perpetrator was finally revealed, it was a massive disappointment.The best thing about this book was finally getting to the end. I regret ta...

Enjoyed the walk down memory lane of the newspaper business.

This book was very painful to read, from beginning to end. There was nothing cohesive about the story line, there were more characters than the author knew what to do with, most of them with very far-fetched names, and only a few were developed enough to be believable. I found it very distracting to try to keep up with all the characters, sometimes having to look back to see who was who. I guess on a positive note, it was somewhat educational on the print media, although even that was confusing

I was looking for an easy and enjoyable read after suffering through Cervantes and came across this mystery. Unfortunately, this is the only mystery this author's written that I'm interested in reading. At first, I really liked the book and was stumped as to who the killer was. Then the story took a strange turn with the characters going to this retreat put on by the company heads at the newspaper. It seemed really weird, but as I worked my way through it I could see that part of the book was "t...

As with all newspapers these days readership, advertising and circulation are becoming a thing of the past. However you really know trouble is in the works when the body of a top Editor for the New York Globe is found murdered in the very newsroom where he works. And not just any murder, he is killed with a spike to the chest, in fact the very same spike he has used from the beginning to kill the hopes and dreams of other journalists by killing their story. The paper assigns one of their own, Ju...

very witty - I am just getting startedWell the wit became scarcer and there was a lot of repetition of the clues and possibilities. If you knew nothing about the internal life of newspapers you would pick up some interesting words and word pictures. Not a waste of time but it would make me look for another book by the author.

I enjoyed this mad dash through the plant and offices of a major newspaper, and the murders of people by myriad means. Distracting for me, though, were the bizarre and amusing names Darnton gave his characters. There's even a pseudo Rupert Murdoch sleazy media magnate.

I loved this author's earlier The Darwin Conspiracy (though not so much his first novel, Neanderthal), so pounced on this when I came across it. A series of murders in the building of the New York Globe (i.e., the New York Times, where Darnton has for a long time been an illustrious fixture) shocks all the journos and indeed the nation. The tale is full of roman a clef elements -- no prizes for guessing who's the prototype for Antipodean media mogul Lester Moloch, for example -- but that's just

I found this an enjoyable read. Murder in the press. There is a lot here to attract those interested in newspapers. I have read Ben Hecht's A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago about doing a column a day and John J. McPhaul's Deadlines and Monkeyshines: The Fabled World of Chicago Journalism. Aside from the murder story, this really reminded me of both of these books, especially the latter. This book is full of reporter stories, some of them are even true per the afterword. There are two mys...

Unabridged and read by Phil Gigante.I gave this 10 minutes and knew, right there, that this is not for me at this time.

I loved the hell out of this book. I really don't know how to write a decent review seeing as I just marathon'd through the last 175+ pages in one sitting, but I'll try.First and foremost, this book was pretty much the antithesis to "Ammunition" in that there were dozens of characters, but almost all of them were fully fleshed out and felt unique. In fact, every chapter seemed to introduce a least a little backstory to a new or unnoticed character. Some of the last names seemed a little bit...co...

My husband and i used to wonder why his editors at the new york times were always so mean and crabby. After reading this who-dunnit, we understand. This book is a murder mystery, ostensibly, but it's really a very detailed portrait of daily life at the world's most prestigious newspaper — which is losing more and more prestige and readership by the minute.It shows the incredible big dog eating little dog daily life there, the fear and loathing of the newsroom. But it also describes in an inspiri...

Meh. Started out sort of interesting, but I think the author was having so much fun creating fictional counterparts to the actual NYT times employees, making up clever names for them, and satirizing the decline of print journalism, he forgot how to write a coherent mystery. Too many supporting characters, few of them well-developed, and some of them reappeared so late in the story that I had no idea who they were. I felt as if I should have taken notes.And the thing that bothered me the most is

As a writer, there are many times I have wanted to kill my editor. And as an editor, I’m sure my staff had wanted to put a spike through my heart as well. Every writer’s fantasy comes true when John Darnton opens his new novel, Black & White & Dead All Over, with the killing of Theodore S. Ratnoff, the New York Globe’s “much feared assistant managing editor.” Ratnoff is found by his administrative assistant with an editor’s spike stuck deep into his chest with a brief note penned in purple ink.

Darnton returns with another great novel, this time using his experience as a journalist to weave a sensational murder mystery, layered with the life of a newspaper. The reader is taken to the depths of the world of print journalism, including its cut-throat competition among reporters, and faced with solving a horrific murder at the same time. A move away from Darnton's traditional scientific analysis, but well worth the literary shift. The reader can push through the murder investigation and a...