Hard News

by Mark T. Sullivan

Gideon McCarthy is a disgraced reporter trying to work his way off the night cops beat. Scarred by personal tragedy, locked in a bitter custody battle for two young children, he believes his career is all but over. If he has any hope of redemption, he must solve a series of savage killings.

Prentice LaFontaine is McCarthy’s best friend, gossip extraordinaire and the black sheep of The Post, the Southern California newspaper for which they both toil. News, as he is known, wants the truth behind a multi-million dollar waterfront development.

Together they will solve a mystery behind a thirty-year-old mystery that may involve The Post itself.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery Thriller

447 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1995

About the author

Mark T. Sullivan (b. 1958) is an author of thrillers. Born in a Boston suburb, he joined the Peace Corp after college, traveling to West Africa to live with a tribe of Saharan nomads. Upon returning to the United States, he took a job at Reuters, beginning a decade-long career in journalism that would eventually lead to a job as an investigative reporter for the San Diego Tribune.

Sullivan spent the winter of 1990 living with a group of skiers in Utah and Wyoming, and used the experience as the foundation for his first novel, The Fall Line (1994). In 1995 he published Hard News, a thriller based on his work as a reporter, and a year later he released The Purification Ceremony, which won the WH Smith Award for Best New Talent. His most recent work is Private Games (2012), which he co-authored with James Patterson. Sullivan lives with his family in Montana, where he skis, hunts, and practices martial arts.

Reviews

[Gary Sosniecki]

We picked up this used paperback because, after spending 43 years in the newspaper business, the title, "Hard News," grabbed us. Unfortunately, the book was a disappointment. I couldn't tell whether Mr. Sullivan was trying to write a 1990s version of "The Front Page" or a thriller. The newsroom scenes were unrealistic, even for the 1990s when newspapers still were prosperous, but Mr. Sullivan created too many characters with too many nicknames. It would have been less confusing if he hadn't used the nicknames throughout the book. And the case Gideon and Prentice were investigating got too confusing at the end. (I'm still not sure who killed Gentry.) Saying all that, in fairness I want to add that the characters were well-developed, even if the names were confusing. Mr. Sullivan is a good writer, and if he hadn't been, I wouldn't have read all 447 pages. And the last page was great! I trust that his later books were better.

[Chaplain Stanley Chapin]

Interesting look at a newspaper operation

I spent years in large corporations and although there is a lot of politics, conspiracy, and backstabbing, this was overdone in those aspects.

[Chad]

What a beautiful depiction of a train wreck of an office in the backdrop of a murder mystery. Such imagery that Sullivan was able to paint held my attention despite the veritable city of characters, or because of it? Somehow, I was able to follow the twists and turns of more than a dozen lives as they two-stepped around each other in the pressure vault that is the newsroom. I had never considered life as a journalist, but if it is even a tenth as interesting as Sullivan portrays, it would be an exhausting career.

[Maddy]

PROTAGONIST: Staff of Post newspaper
RATING: 3.25
WHY: An ensemble consisting of the reporters and editors of the Post are featured in Hard News. The vagaries of the newspaper world are exposed. We follow the stories of quite a few people which I found hard to follow, too many threads for me to manage. Some were quirky; some sad; some humorous. An overall good effort with an ending that was way too convenient.

[Wayne]

Hard News is a fascinating story of the Peyton Place-like atmosphere in a California newspaper office. It covers what goes on inside the office with a wide variety of employees: straight, gay, seedy, heavy drinkers, go-getters, wannabees, etc. It follows the investigative efforts of newspaper reporters to get scoops before other employees do and definitely before the competition's reporters do.
The basic story involves a down-and-nearly out reporter, Gideon McCarthy who has battles on two fronts: trying to get custody of his dead wife's 2 children by her 1st husband; and trying to solve the big story of the murder of prostitutes and their possible connection to the movers and shakers of this California community.
There are so many interesting and strange characters in this story that a listing of the cast of characters would make it easier to follow. The author uses first names, nicknames, and last names interchangeably of the many characters making the story just a bit difficult to follow at times. Regardless, Mark Sullivan has written a different kind of novel that provided me with many enjoyable moments.

[Frodo]

This was my third Sullivan book. The previous ones were engaging and I thoroughly enjoyed them, especially Beneath A Scarlet Sky. Not so with Hard News. I had trouble keeping the characters clear as they seemed to have nick names or were referenced in other ways. Anyway, I can appreciate this product as a look into the guts of gathering and disseminating “hard news.” The pits and valleys of investigative journalism by the characters doing the work is a reality that requires attention if we are to trust the end product. In today’s “fake news” world I can see how painfully unaware we consumers truly are.

[Jackie DeVall]

Hard to finish-a waste of my time

Several times I almost decided to give up on this book. The story could have been told in a fraction of the space. Just when the story got going, the author would divert to lengthy descriptions of another character’s back story. After a while I no longer cared about any of the many players in the drama. I did manage to finish the book and am anxious to start a new one. This one was a waste of my time.

[Erika]

I expected a suspenseful thriller, but I found the book really slow and confusing. I had a hard time keeping track of all the characters and I don't understand how they all fit into the plot. It seems like a lot of characters had nothing to do with the mystery, but they weren't fleshed out enough to have much meaning by themselves. I wasn't interested in the detail about working in a newsroom. The final reveal of the mystery was anticlimactic.

[Lisa Arnold]

started out really well with the finding of the bodies and thought this is going to be a good thriller then got tangled up in the lives of a group of reporters and the petty jealousies of a newspaper by the end I really didnt care too many characters and too much unnecessary detail of their lives. Big disappointment after Ghost Dance.

[Barbara Weber]

HARD NEWS is a beautiful read.

It has it all, including murder, sex and a cast of characters that explodes the mind. Has there been a movie made of Hard NEWS? I'll have to check; it should exist!

[Don Jackson]

Because I really enjoyed reading Under the Tuscan Sun I was looking forward to reading this book. Was very disappointed. It almost seems like it was written by a different author. Very tedious and almost amateurish. Had to force myself to finish it.

[Carmela McFee]

I like this author and I have now read 4 of his books but why nuts he shrink the first 5 words of every chapter so I can't read it?

like this author and I have now read 4 of his books but why nuts he shrink the first 5 words of every chapter so I can't read it?

[Julie McManamon]

Good

Interesting but too detailed. The basic story was very good, so many characters , it was hard to keep track of them. Great ending.

[Renee Venz]

Excellent

Once I started this book, I couldn't put it down. My first Sullivan book but it will not my last.

[Dorothy Mills]

Hard reading

Trying to follow this story was exasperating. The style in which it was written moves the characters back and forth, impossible to follow.

[Christine Brucker]

Good summer read. Too many names plus nicknames to always keep straight. Great character development.

[Leslie A. Dunsworth]

After Beneath the Scarlet Sky and The Last Green Valley, this was a big change. It was an interesting plot and read more like a screenplay to me; meaty roles for actors.

[Kenneth Nordqvist]

What can you say. I like his way o creating a good story.So i strongly recommend it

[Katharine Ott]

"Hard News" - written by Mark T Sullivan and published in 1995 by Zebra. A long, drawn out newspaper story, not at all good.