Below the Fold: A Clare Carlson Mystery

An unpersuasive portrayal of the news business and a tired plotline mar Belsky’s sequel to 2018’s Yesterday’s News, which introduced New York City TV news director Clare Carlson. The implausible backstory doesn’t help. Carlson won a Pulitzer for reporting on a kidnapping and presumed murder, without revealing that the 11-year-old victim, Lucy Devlin, was actually the daughter she’d given up for adoption. Carlson is now searching for Lucy, having learned that the girl is still alive. Meanwhile, her boss, media mogul Brendan Kaiser, is linked to a sensational murder case. Someone battered Grace Mancuso to death with a replica of the Statue of Liberty in her Manhattan apartment. Mancuso was an investment firm employee who testified about her colleagues’ fraud scheme. Near her corpse is a list of names, including Kaiser’s, which prompts Carlson to try to solve the killing and discover how the names are connected with each other. Thin characters, incongruities, and errors make suspension of disbelief a challenge. [em]Agent: Nalini Akolekar, Spencerhill Assoc. (May) [/em]