Kelly, an education correspondent for Britain's Financial Times, deftly captures the quirky staffing and droll provinciality endemic to country weeklies, such as Dryden's The Crow. ("[T]he day after press day was plagued by serial whingers who'd spotted tiny mistakes, and occasional whoppers. Drydens favourite ... had been the week theyd included the death notice of Albert Morris in the 'Used Cars' column.") It's Dryden himself, though, who is best rendered in these pages. An irrationally exuberant ink-slinger and "dedicated physical coward of extraordinary range," hes encumbered by guilt for having left his wife, Laura, in a coma after a foggy-night accident sent their car into a river. Some unknown person dragged Dryden to safety, but abandoned Laura. The reporter now refuses to drive, instead being squired about by a taciturn cabbie, and makes regular, if increasingly hopeless visits to his wife's bedside. But when a cop on the outs with his bosses asks Dryden to falsify a story in order to expose a murderer, the newsie sees an opportunity to bargain for information about what really happened the night of that car crash--giving little thought to how the killer might strike back at him, or the defenseless Laura.
Description:
Kelly, an education correspondent for Britain's Financial Times, deftly captures the quirky staffing and droll provinciality endemic to country weeklies, such as Dryden's The Crow. ("[T]he day after press day was plagued by serial whingers who'd spotted tiny mistakes, and occasional whoppers. Drydens favourite ... had been the week theyd included the death notice of Albert Morris in the 'Used Cars' column.") It's Dryden himself, though, who is best rendered in these pages. An irrationally exuberant ink-slinger and "dedicated physical coward of extraordinary range," hes encumbered by guilt for having left his wife, Laura, in a coma after a foggy-night accident sent their car into a river. Some unknown person dragged Dryden to safety, but abandoned Laura. The reporter now refuses to drive, instead being squired about by a taciturn cabbie, and makes regular, if increasingly hopeless visits to his wife's bedside. But when a cop on the outs with his bosses asks Dryden to falsify a story in order to expose a murderer, the newsie sees an opportunity to bargain for information about what really happened the night of that car crash--giving little thought to how the killer might strike back at him, or the defenseless Laura.