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Guests | December 7, 2009

The Cornucopia of Home Science

1 comment By Theodore Gray

Reading old books of science experiments for children, it's easy to become nostalgic for the days when you could buy jugs of sulfur and mercury at... Continue »

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1. 
   $20.96 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

   The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe

   Theodore Gray

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katknit, January 25, 2009

Bad news staggers the already moribund New York Globe (Times?) when universally hated editor Ted Ratnoff turns up dead outside his own office, skewered on an editor's spike. This plum of a story is assigned to ambitious reporter Jude Hurley, but there are precious few leads, and it looks like an inside job. Among the suspects are Jude himself and many of his Dickensian-named colleagues, including food editor Dinah Outsalot (author of a self-help cookbook, "Eating Your Way Through Grief"), tabloid mogul Lester Moloch, blogger Nat Dreck, and gossip columnist Pat Lorn.

Former newsman John Darnton pulls out all the cliches and inflates them into broad satire, some of which will be missed by readers not familiar with New York Times celebrity-staffers. Soon the bodies are dropping like the proverbial flies at Globe headquarters, all killed in gruesome ways using outdated publishing equipment. Can these heinous crimes be solved before the Globe ends up as part of Moluch's schlocky media empire? It is easy to picture this plot as a vintage movie, part screwball comedy and part murder mystery, starring such wise-cracking icons as Roz Russell and Jimmy Cagney, and delivering such lines as "Stop the presses" and "He's got ink in his veins". The parody is great fun (my favorite line is "If your mother says she loves you, demand a second source"), although the many red herrings, victims, and motives sometimes cause confusion.

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