Bernard Cockburn is a beat reporter for the Omaha Weekly News-Telegraph. His boss has him chasing dead-end stories on real estate and county funding irregularities when he'd rather be working on that handful of neglected exposes in his bottom desk drawer — or self-medicating in the apartment he shares with an on-again, off-again girlfriend.

Then Cockburn finds himself at a bloody crime scene in downtown Omaha and uncovers a lead in what soon becomes the only story worth pursuing, one that just might pull him down and keep him there for good. From street level to small-town bureaucracy, and even the staff at the paper, a vigilante league is intent on cleaning up the ghetto for profit, even if it means killing a few people to get it done — an elaborate conspiracy too unbelievable for newsprint.

Like the detectives of all great noir, Cockburn's got a past that threatens to invade his present at any moment. Work has become a diversion from his personal life; but almost no one knew about his connection to the death of his best friend's little sister, and now he's begun receiving disconcerting blackmail threats.

Debut novelist Jonathan Segura has all the right instincts when it comes to plotting a relentless and tightly packed story. Darkly funny at times, and even wryly emotional, Occupational Hazards is a sharply observant, suspenseful read from a new and worthy writing talent.

"Bernard Cockburn, a beat reporter in his early 30s for the Omaha Weekly News-Telegraph, pounds the fearsome streets of Omaha, Neb., in Segura's crisp, raunchily amusing debut. Cockburn (pronounced Co-burn, as he often has to explain) exudes enough jaded cynicism for a reporter twice his age, but he reacts like an irresponsible adolescent to the news that his live-in girlfriend, Allison, is pregnant. Despite the boozing and drugging, Cockburn's got a nose for a story and the one he's been researching about a bogus LLC group buying up dilapidated properties downtown takes a sinister turn after two of the group's principal members end up dead. The trail leads to neighborhood militants who have taken to exacting vigilante justice on Omaha's pushers, pimps and addicts. A dark truth in Cockburn's past that he'd prefer to keep secret complicates his investigation. With an emphasis on the protagonist's angst, Cockburn is the sort of dysfunctional dude — immature, posturing, hapless — that will keep readers intrigued and should appeal especially to fans of Chuck Palahniuk and Arthur Nersesian." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Jonathan Segura, the author of this savagely funny first novel, earned a master's degree in fiction writing from Columbia University and is now a reviewer and editor at Publishers Weekly, all of which suggests he is a young man of sound mind and sterling character. However, there must be a black hole in his past, because "Occupational Hazards" is a dungeon-dark tale of low-rent journalism, political... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) corruption and rampant degeneracy in a hellish Omaha, which in Segura's telling is the armpit of the universe, if not worse.

Our antihero, Bernard Cockburn (pronounced Co-burn, he keeps reminding people), is a $300-a-week reporter for a third-rate Omaha weekly. He lives in a grubby apartment in a dangerous slum with a chubby girl named Allison, who is clearly too good for him. They have their problems: For one, she's given to uppers (mainly cocaine) and he's a "downer guy," which means he consumes oceans of Old Crow and whatever pills he can beg, borrow or steal. Their problems worsen when Allison announces she's pregnant, whereupon he accuses her of setting him up and walks out. Our boy Burn, as he likes to be called, goes ballistic at the very thought of the "wife kids house" lifestyle. Marriage, he figures, "would require a prolonged feigning of interest in someone's life."

But Burn's biggest problems are professional. The slum he calls home is in the process of gentrification, and strange things are happening. He finds hints of corruption in how contracts are being awarded. Meanwhile, a posse of well-armed faith-based nutcases is harassing the neighborhood pimps and whores whom Burn considers his friends. Then some of these vigilantes start dying under mysterious circumstances. Burn, whose journalistic techniques include constant lying and occasional breaking and entering, digs into all this, uncovers widespread political corruption and in time finds his life seriously imperiled. A $300-a-week reporter can, it appears, be murdered with impunity in Omaha. How all this ends must not be revealed, except to say that the author stubbornly resists uplift.

The beauty of the novel is Segura's ability to walk a line between the comedy and the horror of Burn's story. He's a true louse and a world-class cynic, but he's a better man than the corrupt officials and vice lords he's out to nail. Plus he's one hell of a funny narrator. For long stretches, the plot fades into the background and we simply enjoy (if we are so inclined) Burn's portrayal of his deplorable life and the toxic world he inhabits.

For example, we have this less-than-elevated take on his profession: "So long as people can read and there's (expletive) happening, there's a place for me in this world." There is Burn's sentimental memory of meeting his girlfriend when they were both stoned and "her breath reeked something like a decomposing corpse in a sulfur mine." Or there's his pal Cliff's advice on how Burn can get rid of his pregnant girlfriend: "Just go home reeking of another woman and, bang, you're free. Works every time." In one of the sordid gin mills Burn frequents, the fellow on the next barstool "looks like he's pushing eighty, which means he's probably forty." One of my favorite lines may or may not work out of context. Burn, seeking dirt, calls a security company and pretends to be a deranged husband whose wife is cheating on him. As the conversation breaks down, he blurts out, "Hit a trip wire or something when I was crawling around in the bushes with a cleaver. Swear, if I'da caught them in — " and the employee hangs up. If you're blessed with a certain mind-set, that's a gloriously surreal outburst.

Of course, that mind-set is not universally shared, and this is not a book for everyone. It probably helps to be young, hip, cynical and degenerate. That is presumably why the publisher is bringing out "Occupational Hazards" as a trade paperback. The publishing business has changed in recent years. If you look back a few decades, novels were typically brought out in hardback and then, if all went well, a year later appeared again in a paperback edition that sold for around half the original price. To be published as a "paperback original" was an indignity that was imposed on, among others, some fine crime writers when the genre wasn't highly regarded. John D. MacDonald's great Travis McGee novels weren't published in hardcover until late in his career.

Today, editors face financial pressures that often lead them to bring out offbeat novels as less costly trade paperbacks. In some cases, that may be the only way to get edgy novels by young writers published, because their natural audience is disinclined to spend $25 on a book. Some of the most enjoyable novels I've reviewed of late — Duane Swierczynski's "Severance Package," for example, and Frank Tallis' "Vienna Blood" — have emerged that way. The lower price does not imply lesser quality. Often the opposite is true. This nicely nasty little novel is a case in point.

Reviewed by Patrick Anderson, whose e-mail address is mondaythrillers(at symbol)aol.com, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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"[A] profane, grimly witty newsroom noir set on the mean streets of Omaha....[S]mart, fast-paced, cleverly plotted and with a gritty and persuasive city setting — an auspicious debut." Kirkus Reviews

"[A] savagely funny first novel....The beauty of [Occupational Hazards] is Segura's ability to walk a line between the comedy and the horror of Burn's story....Plus he's one hell of a funny narrator." Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post Book World

Newcomer Segura presents this fast-paced newsroom thriller about a burnt-out reporter who uncovers a shocking, deadly conspiracy — and who finds his own sharply funny, endearingly dysfunctional self along the way.

Jonathan Segura is the deputy reviews editor for Publishers Weekly and holds a masters degree in fiction writing from Columbia University. He lives in Brooklyn.