BooksChatter: ☀ The Last Scoop: Clare Carlson Mysteries [3]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for The Last Scoop, a Mystery by R. G. Belsky (5 May 2020, Oceanview Publishing, 369 pages).

This is the third book in the Clare Carlson Mysteries series.

Don't miss our Review, and our guest post by author R. G. Belsky on 21 May 2020, "Using a real-life crime for mystery fiction".

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and the Kindle Cloud Reader Preview below, as well as full details of the series.

Author R. G. Belsky will be awarding a $20 Amazon gift card to two randomly drawn winners via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).

|| Synopsis || Teaser: KCR Preview || The Series || Author's Guest Post' || Review || About the Author || Giveaway & Tour Stops ||

Synopsis

The killer whispered-“A pretty damsel...worth a pretty risk."

Martin Barlow was Clare Carlson's first newspaper editor, a beloved mentor who inspired her career as a journalist. But, since retiring from his newspaper job, he had become a kind of pathetic figure—railing on about conspiracies, cover-ups, and other imaginary stories he was still working on. Clare had been too busy with her own career to pay much attention to him.

When Martin Barlow is killed on the street one night during an apparent mugging attempt gone bad, it seems like he was just an old man whose time had come.

But Clare—initially out of a sense of guilt for ignoring her old friend and then because of her own journalistic instincts—begins looking into his last story idea. As she digs deeper and deeper into his secret files, she uncovers shocking evidence of a serial killer worse than Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, or any of the other infamous names in history.

This really is the biggest story of Martin Barlow's career—and Clare's, too—as she uncovers the path leading to the decades-long killer of at least twenty young women. All is not as it seems during Clare's relentless search for this serial killer. Is she setting herself up to be his next victim?

Clare Carlson is perfect for fans of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone and Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski

Teaser: KCR Preview

The scariest kind of serial killer—one you don't know exists

The Last Scoop
Available to pre-order NOW! OUT Tomorrow!

The Series: Clare Carlson Mysteries

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Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.

Yesterday's News [1]

**See full feature and author interview**

When eleven-year-old Lucy Devlin disappeared on her way to school more than a decade ago, it became one of the most famous missing child cases in history. The story turned reporter Clare Carlson into a media superstar overnight. Clare broke exclusive after exclusive. She had unprecedented access to the Devlin family as she wrote about the heartbreaking search for their young daughter. She later won a Pulitzer Prize for her extraordinary coverage of the case.

Now Clare once again plunges back into this sensational story. With new evidence, new victims, and new suspects—too many suspects. Everyone from members of a motorcycle gang to a prominent politician running for a US Senate seat seem to have secrets they’re hiding about what really might have happened to Lucy Devlin. But Clare has her own secrets. And, in order to untangle the truth about Lucy Devlin, she must finally confront her own torturous past.

[Published 1 May 2018, 352 pages]

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Below the Fold [2]

**See full feature, guest post by author R. G. Belsky, "Writing The Female Protagonist", and our review**

Every human life is supposed to be important. Everyone should matter. But that’s not the case in the cutthroat TV news-rating world where Clare Carlson works. Sex, money, and power sell. Only murder victims of the right social strata are considered worth covering. Not the murder of a “nobody.”

So, when the battered body of a homeless woman named Dora Gayle is found on the streets of New York City, her murder barely gets a mention in the media. But Clare—a TV news director who still has a reporter’s instincts—decides to dig deeper into the seemingly meaningless death. She uncovers mysterious links between Gayle and a number of wealthy and influential figures. There is a prominent female defense attorney; a scandal-ridden ex-congressman; a decorated NYPD detective; and—most shocking of all—a wealthy media mogul who owns the TV station where Clare works. Soon there are more murders, more victims, more questions.

As the bodies pile up, Clare realizes that her job, her career, and maybe even her life are at stake as she chases after her biggest story ever.

[Published 7 May 2019, 356 pages]

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About the Author

R.G. Belsky is an author of crime fiction and a journalist in New York City. He has a degree in journalism from Ohio University and has had an illustrious career in both print and television news.

The first Clare Carlson book, YESTERDAY'S NEWS, came out in 2018. It won the David Award at Deadly Ink for Best Mystery of 2018 and was also named Outstanding Crime/News Based Novel by Just Reviews in 2018 and was a Finalist for Best Mystery of 2018 in the Foreword INDIES Awards.

Belsky previously wrote the Gil Malloy series - The Kennedy Connection, Shooting for the Stars, and Blond Ice - about a newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News.

Belsky himself is the former Vice President at NBC Local Digital News, Managing Editor of the NY Daily News, News Editor of Star magazine, and Metropolitan Editor of the New York Post. Most recently, he was a Managing Editor of NBC News. Belsky’s crime novels reflect his extensive media background in newspapers, magazines, and TV/digital news.

Belsky won the Claymore Award at Killer Nashville in 2016. He has finished as a Finalist for both the Silver Falchion and David Awards.

His previous suspense/thriller novels include Loverboy and Playing Dead, and he recently began writing a new series of thrillers under the pen name of Dana Perry. The first one, The Silent Victim, is now available online and in audio from Bookouture. It features New York City newspaper reporter Jessie Tucker. A second book THE GOLDEN GIRL will be out on June 8.

Belsky lives in New York City.

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