Arsenault, Mark – SPEAK ILL OF THE LIVING

[LJ Roberts]

SPEAK ILL OF THE LIVING (Journalist-Massachusetts-Cont) – VG Arsenault, Mark – 2nd in series
Poisoned Pen Press, 2005- Hardcover

Eddie Bourque is a free-lance reporter and journalism teacher in Lowell, Massachusetts; the home of Jack Kerouac. When a picture of a bank president, thought to have been murdered months earlier, appears in a local newspaper holding a current paper, Eddie is asked to take the story national. When he receives the same picture with the words "I know who is doing this" from his brother Henry; 20 years older and serving a life sentence for murder, whom Eddie has never met; it becomes more than a story; it becomes personal.

As much as I enjoyed Arsenault's first book "Spked!," this was even better as there wasn't a slow spot in it. Eddie is a wonderful protagonist, realistic, and introspective. He loves his coffee and cat, General VonKatz. There are interesting secondary characters in Detective Orr, brother Henry and his wife Bobbie. The book's sense of place, dialogue, suspense and pacing all contribute to capturing and keeping the reader turning the pages. If you've not yet read Arsenault, do. I don't think you'll be disappointed.