Like many of the greats before him, journalist R.G. Belsky has taken his dogged pursuit of entertainment and enlightenment and made the transition from a career in facts to fiction as a crime novelist. Having formerly worked for media outlets including the New York Post, the New York Daily News, Star magazine, and NBC, he…
My series character Clare Carlson, a TV journalist who stars in the latest book Broadcast Blues, is a pretty terrific, pretty cool woman—if I do say so myself. I based her in large part on many of the pretty terrific, pretty cool real life woman journalists that I have worked with myself over the years…
PROLOGUE From the Diary of Wendy Kyle…. If you’re reading this, I’m already dead. How’s that for an attention-grabbing opening line? I know, I know…it’s a bit melodramatic. And I’m not normally the melodramatic type. Really. No, Wendy Kyle is the kind of woman who deals in facts for a living, the kind of woman…
Award-winning author R. G. Belsky knows more than a thing or two about the worlds his fictional characters inhabit. A veteran journalist, he was a top editor at the New York Post, New York Daily News, Star Magazine, and NBC News before making the decision to write fiction full-time. Unsurprisingly, his vast experiences in the…
Chapter 1 I met Brendan Kaiser, the owner of my TV station Channel 10 and about a zillion other properties, for lunch on a sunny spring day at a restaurant called Tri-Bar in lower Manhattan. Tri-Bar is what’s known in New York as a celebrity restaurant. In other words, whenever you read the gossip columns,…
There’s an old adage in publishing: Write what you know. It’s one that R.G. Belsky has applied liberally to his work as a crime novelist. The author had an esteemed career in journalism—including stints at the New York Post, the NY Daily News, Star Magazine and NBC News—before turning his attention to fiction. He has…
PROLOGUE A black-pajama-clad figure crouched alongside the sandbags piled up to protect the building in Saigon—a building filled with U.S. soldiers. Putting an explosive charge between the sandbags powerful enough to blow up the building and everyone inside. He was a Vietnamese youth, with dark hair and dark eyes, his face covered with sweat. He…
When you write mystery/thriller novels like I do, one of the questions frequently asked by editors, reviewers, and readers is: “But is this story really believable?” It’s a tough balance to maintain in a fiction book. If the story is totally “believable,” it might also be boring, But you don’t want to push the envelope…
CHAPTER 1 I was sitting in my office at Channel 10 News, drinking black coffee and skimming through the morning papers when I saw the article about Marty Barlow. It was a brief item about the murder of a man on an East Side New York City street. It identified the victim as Martin Barlow.…
Most crime stories have a beginning and an end. They start with the crime, then the investigation by law enforcement authorities—and finally the solving of the case. But that’s not the way it works with cold cases. All we have left is unanswered questions. Which is what makes cold cases so fascinating. As a longtime…
