Book Review: Great News Town
Great News Town. Sue Merrill. Lulu.com Publishing, December 17, 2012, Trade Paperback and Kindle, 314 pages.
Reviewed by Christine Collins Cacciatore.
If you’re looking for a gripping story—something you won’t want to put down—then I highly suggest you pick up a copy of Great News Town, written by the very talented and imaginative Sue Merrell, who worked for the Joliet Herald News some time ago as an assistant city editor.
As someone from the Joliet area, I found this well-written novel particularly enthralling because I was a junior in high school when the actual gruesome murders described in the book took place, and I do remember reading about this in the newspaper.
Sue Merrell’s 314 page novel starts out with a bang, literally within the first two chapters. I lived in Plainfield when the Union Oil Refinery explosion happened, and I remember like it was yesterday. Despite living dozens of miles from the scene of the explosion, our house shook and our screen door rattled violently. She does a great job capturing the feel of the time period.
Great News Town is about a series of murders that took place in the hot summer of 1983 in the Will County area. The reader follows Josie, the single mother of a little boy named Kevin. She is a reporter investigating the deaths and writing about them. Ms. Merrell also brings insight into the victim’s lives, making it hit home a little harder. She really brings the characters to life. From time to time while reading, I would remember hearing about this fact or that name and because the victims were real people, it brings home the violence and fear the Will County area experienced during that summer.
The colorful news reporter characters Ms. Merrell describes sound like the ones you’d find in most newspapers in the early 80’s, but she has a charming way of bringing this particular office to life. The reader gets a very vivid inside view of the life of a reporter, especially in the days before social media. Newspapers and their reporters played a huge part in how the general public got their information in those days, unlike today when a few clicks of the mouse can tell you everything going on in the world. She does a wonderful job imparting the not so stellar lives of some of her characters, which actually endears you to them. From time to time I did get a little confused as a reader because there are many characters in the novel; I primarily read romance and paranormal novels and they don’t have nearly as many names to keep track of. However, I do think that she did a brilliant job weaving the story in and out of the characters; the reader is being kept in the loop and the ends are tied up nicely.
Overall, Ms. Merrell did an excellent job with Great News Town. I really could sink my teeth into this book, especially since I’m from that area. That really impacted me as a reader. Other books by this author include Laughing for a Living, One Shoe Off, and Full Moon Friday.
Great job to Ms. Merrell and I look forward to reading the next book by this clever author.