The print media and national networks ran the same basic theme the next day. It was almost as if they were taking their cue from Melinda’s show. In a way they were. She was becoming a significant source for their stories, so they could start with the lame disclaimer, “It has been reported that…” Of course, this is totally unprofessional and unreliable, but it did provide cover for them. They could point to someone else and truthfully say whatever they reported had been reported elsewhere first.

Dennis Carstens is a poor writer, but an excellent storyteller. He badly needs a good editor to fix his prose and punctuation, but he has spun a riveting tale in Media Justice that had me changing my evening plans in order to see how it all came out.

Unfortunately, he also lost me as a reader. More on that below.

22-year-old Brittany Riley is a widowed, single mom. She has a strained relationship with her domineering mother, but depends on her for child care when she’s working out her frustrations by partying with friends. Being a mother can be tough, but Becky, her two-year-old daughter, is her pride and joy, and she dotes on her. And lately she’s met a man, Bob Olson, whom she thinks might just be Mr. Right…

Then one morning she wakes up to find Becky missing from her room. Bob has also vanished. Brittany panics, terrified of her mother’s anger, so for ten days she (stupidly) pretends nothing’s wrong. She searches for Bob and Becky in the daytime and parties with her friends at night to ease the strain.

When the truth comes out, the county sheriff’s office is helpful at first. But gradually they grow suspicious. This mysterious Bob Olson seems to have left no trace. Nobody ever saw him; nobody seems to know him. It’s looking more and more as if Brittany herself is a baby killer and a liar. When hunters find Becky’s body in a river, Brittany is soon in jail, charged with murder.

So Becky’s mother goes to defense lawyer Marc Kadella. It’s clear that the state’s case against Brittany is in fact circumstantial and fairly thin. But public sentiment is another matter. A local legal reporter has turned the case into her personal crusade, and her point of view becomes everyone’s point of view. And there are crazies out there… It all works up to a shattering climax.

The great strength of the Marc Kadella books is their realistic portrayal of the less glamorous side of the legal profession. There’s a real sense of authenticity in these stories. And the picture Media Justice offers of how “journalism” (especially TV “journalism”) filters facts and manipulates public opinion is genuinely horrifying.

I can always put a book down if I need to, but this one was harder than most.

And yet, I’m done with the Marc Kadella series. The author shows considerable laziness, in my opinion, in falling back – not once but twice – on a hoary entertainment trope, a phenomenon quite rare in the real world – the “murderous pro-lifer.” Using it once in a book I could perhaps forgive as a labor-saving shortcut. But doing it twice strongly suggests malice (as Marc Kadella might say in court), in spite of conservative moments in the story. This guy hates us. I’m confident he doesn’t want someone like me as a reader.

Too bad. I’ll miss him.