Rocketgirl's Full Review: Arthur Hailey - The Evening News
Arthur Hailey is generally known for disaster novels, such as Airport. This book is written along the same lines--a kidnapping would pretty much be a disaster for the victim's family. But because who the victim is, there are more plot devices that can be used than if the victim was an average person.
Crawford Sloane is the lead anchorman for CBA news. He has always feared that he might be a target for terrorists or kidnappers. He has spoken to his wife about it and even wrote a book about terrorists. But when the deed happens, and its not him that is kidnapped, it is his family--his wife, son, and father.
Though the kidnap is discovered fairly quickly, the bad guys change cars several times and get away. Sloane's friends at CBA decide they have more resources and more motivation to find Sloane's family than the FBI does. Anchorman Harry Partridge leads up a crack team of reporters, producers, and cameramen that ultimately find a series of clues that find out who took the Sloane family and that they had been taken to Peru.
Unfortunately they don't know what the kidnappers want. When they finally find out, as in most cases, the network is not willing to pay the price. Sloan knows and understands this and just hopes someone can find his family before the kidnappers make good on their threats.
I have liked other Arthur Hailey books and expected to enjoy this one. Their general layout is the same so I knew what to expect. He spends some time laying the groundwork for each character that will be involved. Then the disaster strikes. Then he describes how each of those characters lives will intersect when they deal with the tragedy. This book is much the same. The only complaint I would have here are there are some pages that provide meaningless background information. For example, long passages of Harry Partridge's former experience as a war correspondent in Vietnam. Though it might be relevant to why Partridge feels he is the best person for the job of finding Sloane's family, it isn't relevant to the reader. The author could have just made a statement that Partridge's former experience as a war reporter made him feel equipped for the unexpected...or something like that. Since this book is almost 600 pages this just added unnecessary length.
Other than that though, I liked everything else about the book. I like having characters to cheer for, which is the news people and the Sloan family. I liked seeing newspeople use their talents and contacts for something good rather than always raking someone's life through the coals. There were also characters to hate. Obviously the kidnappers were despicable. But there was also the network's corporate president that was up there too. All she was concerned about was the parent corporation's financial deal with Peru. And the network's ratings. She had no compassion. You hope she gets hers in the end.
Overall, this was a fun story. It was interesting to see how the newspeople looked for clues vs. how police would do it. There was still a puzzle to be solved and I love puzzles. There is a small amount of violence in it, but it is not graphically described. There was little to no profanity and no sexual content at all. If they can stick it out through 500+ pages, teens would easily be able to enjoy the book and follow the plot line. It's not particularly tricky but is extremely detailed. I hope to find other Hailey books I have not yet read and catch up on them too. They are well crafted stories.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.