A Bad Day's Work
A Lilly Hawkins Mystery
Nora McFarland
Review: After Bakersfield television "shooter" Lilly Hawkins gets a scoop and films a crime scene in which a local young man is found murdered, events begin to spiral out of control for her in A Bad Day's Work, the first mystery in this series by Nora McFarland.
For starters, her scoop is a bust, the film is blank, and on thin ice already with the station management, Lilly is suspended. But the press-averse owner of the property on which the crime took place doesn't know the film doesn't exist nor does the gang that's running a truck hijacking operation in the area ... and both come after Lilly. But not before the police step in and demand the film, accusing her of interfering with their investigation. With nothing to give any of her pursuers, she tries to remember exactly what happened while she was at the site of the murder, and why it is so important to so many people that it -- whatever "it" is -- not be revealed.
Lilly Hawkins has an enormous chip on her shoulder. Quick to anger, and one whose typical conversational manner is yelling, she's a difficult character to like. The premise of this novel is that she's having a tough run of luck, but it's hard for the reader to be sympathetic to her plight when her actions -- or lack thereof -- are portrayed as the result of professional incompetence rather than something happening out of her control. There are attempts to inject humor into some of the situations in which she finds herself, but they lack confidence (or maybe conviction) and typically fall flat. Furthermore, the murder mystery itself is weakly developed, takes far too long to get going -- the initial focus being on Lilly herself -- and does not really hit its stride until well past the first third of the book.
With its small city setting, a lead character in an occupation where she wears many hats, and the author's insider view of the television industry, the series would seem to be capable of delivering a number of interesting, diverse, off-beat mystery plots. But this initial effort is hampered on several fronts, and, somewhat surprisingly, given its potential for originality, probably suffers most from being far too derivative.
Acknowledgment: Simon & Schuster provided a copy of A Bad Day's Work for this review.
Review Copyright © 2010 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Selected reviews of other mysteries by this author …
Hot, Shot, and Bothered
Touchstone (Trade Paperback), August 2011
ISBN-13: 9781439155561; ISBN-10: 1439155569
Location(s) referenced in A Bad Day's Work: Bakersfield, California
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A Bad Day's Work by Nora McFarland
Publisher: Touchstone
Format: Trade Paperback
ISBN-10: 1-4391-5548-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-5548-6
Publication Date: August 2010
List Price: $14.99
Synopsis (from the publisher): Nothing seems to be going Lilly Hawkins’ way. A TV news photographer at her hometown television station, she’s one of the hardest working "shooters" there, but her pit-bull personality and a series of unlucky blunders have put her job in jeopardy.
So when an urgent story breaks in the middle of the night, Lilly is determined to turn her bad luck around and get the respect she deserves. But the pressure is on; either she delivers amazing video or she’s fired. After busting her butt and dodging the cops, Lilly has what could be the biggest scoop of her career—exclusive video of a murder scene. Or does she have it? Lilly is stunned when the tape played in front of the entire newsroom is nothing but dead air.
Soon she’s on the run from criminals and police, both of whom claim Lilly’s video is the key to solving the murder and think she pocketed the real tape. Can she escape her pursuers long enough to catch the killer, or will she end the day as the next victim?
Lilly’s bad day just keeps getting worse, but the one thing she knows for sure is that she’d like to live to see more of them ...
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