Murder Off Mike
By Joyce Krieg
Reviewed by Stephanie Dower

The chummy candor of a girls’ night out over after-work gin and tonics easily lends itself to Joyce Krieg’s protagonist as she tells her tale of talk-radio murder and mystery with a subtle hook and insistent pull  to its satisfyingly crafted solution.

The altogether suspicious death of her longtime mentor and friend sends shockwaves through the life of “talk-radio diva” Shauna J., her friends and coworkers at Krieg’s fictional Sacramento independant radio station.  Cryptic notes, letters and on-air catch-phrases left by her mentor call into play Shauna’s background and experience as the daughter of a political candidate and jazz singer.  Add to the mix one shady political indoctrination program cranking out political figureheads, a fretwork of grassroots backscratching, pirate radio entrepreneurs and a decades-old enigmatic partnership that touches her life in more ways than she can imagine.  Shauna J. finds herself searching for the meaning of her mentor’s death and the ultimate reasons behind the uneasy coincidences that implicate more than a few of her close associates.

Krieg’s spanning knowledge of the Sacramento area, political intrigue, regional Jazz, the innerworkings of independant talk radio and the underground pirate radio movement grounds her novel in plausibly pleasant detail:  Shauna J. could be the voice you listen to on your drive to work every day; the gubernatorial candidate could be the one you choose in the next election; the ex-cop turned security officer could be standing in your bank lobby tomorrow.  Written with equal skill whether describing the flavors and features of a full-blown jazz festival, creating the confident patter of talk radio personalities, or plotting the web of characters who seek to fulfill a covert acquisition, Krieg’s novel sustains even-handed development of fully fleshed characters and plot pacing.  While we never know the true persona of Shauna J., at the conclusion she becomes Krieg’s iconic heroine in her ability to resolve and overcome the political and personal watershed threatening to bring an end to her career and her life.

Joyce Krieg’s “Murder Off Mike” won best first Traditional Mystery Novel sponsored by St. Martin’s Minotaur and Malice Domestic in 2002.