I have just finished reading Nelson DeMille’s latest detective novel, "Night Fall," which centers on the tragedy of TWA Flight 800, the jet that went down off Long Island in 1996, killing everybody aboard.
I recommend it highly. It’s perhaps a bit less exciting than previous DeMille books – I have read several - but becomes powerfully gripping as it nears the resolution of the story. Once again, his protagonist – former NYPD detective John Corey – is persuasive, thanks to the huge reservoirs of skepticism covering his idealistic core. This more than compensates for DeMille's continuing failure to make his female characters real.
And what has this to do with journalism? That is DeMille’s strength. He knows and is masterful at laying out how law enforcement works – its procedures, biases, strengths, weaknesses and definitely its inter-agency tensions.
Come to think of it, if DeMille’s hero is a projection, if the author is himself a skeptic burning to expose truth, well, that just about defines a great reporter, doesn’t it?