News From the Edge (series), by Mark Sumner
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Back in 2001, there was a TV series on Sci-Fi Channel, called The Chronicle, which was based on this series of books. I hadn't read them at the time, but I did enjoy the show. Now, in 2009, I've been reading the books (which a friend gave me at least a few years ago), and I must say, they bear little resemblance to the show. There is a tabloid newspaper which reports strange stuff, but that's pretty much where the similarities end. In the books, the paper is called the Global Query, whereas in the show, it's the World Chronicle. All the characters are different, and most importantly, in the books (as opposed to the show), there doesn't really seem to be anything supernatural going on. Paranormal, sure, but not supernatural. There aren't any actual monsters, or at least nothing that can't be explained by science (even if it requires a suspension of disbelief, at times). I should also mention that the books (which came out in 1997-99) say on the covers (of the first two of my copies), "Now an NBC TV Series!" I'm not at all sure this was ever a series on NBC, it's probably referring to "The Chronicle" on Sci-Fi. But whatever, it's not important. The important thing is, the books are fun to read...

In the first book, we meet a reporter named Savannah McKinnon, who works for the Global Query, though for that job, she uses the pen name "Savvy Skye." The story is told in first-person narrative, from her perspective. She's not really happy working for the Query, for a number of reasons. Mainly, she'd rather be working for a respectable newspaper. And she does moonlight sometimes (under her real name) for the Green River Journal, a small local paper (whose circulation is dwarfed by the Query's, which is a national paper. The Journal is edited by Jimmy Knoles, who used to be a hotshot, globe-trotting reporter for the Washington Post. He's also an old friend of Bill Genovese, the gruff editor of the Query. Savvy has recently become friends with Jimmy, and more recently, her feelings for him have been growing into something else, though he's old enough to be her father (which makes Jimmy reluctant to think of Savvy as anything more than a friend and colleague).

Anyway, she ends up driving to Lake Jellico, Minnesota, to investigate a story, when a teenaged girl named Gloria Kwei reports that her older brother, Tom, had been killed by a lake monster. (Their father had died five years ago, and they hadn't seen their mother in even longer.) Gloria introduces Savvy to a teacher at a community college, named Bryan Raley, who is an amateur cryptozoologist. From him she learns of long-standing rumors of a lake monster called Big Jelly. But in the course of her investigations, Savvy becomes suspicious of a new factory, called ChemMat.

And... I fear to say anything else would be too spoilery. But I will say the books in this series are all pretty short, quick reads. Amusing and interesting, perhaps just a little scary at some points. Savvy's certainly a good character. Though alot of the time her theories seem to be wrong, she always ultimately ends up uncovering the truth. And I feel like saying that some of her words and actions, though moreso her internal dialog, reminds me of a kind of hard-boiled detective story (not that I've really read any of those, I just have a vague sense of what they're supposed to be like). But... maybe it would be more apt to call her soft-boiled. At any rate, she has a rather cynical and sarcastic wit, but a good heart, as well. Anyway, not sure what else to say, except to apply this final paragraph of the first book's review to the other books, as well....

The second book is set, I think, not too awfully long after the first one. A few weeks, maybe. At any rate, Savvy had gotten a good story out of her previous field assignment, so now Bill Genovese is willing to send her on more. This time, he assigns her to investigate a series of strange calls that had come in from the small island town of Meridian, Illinois. Unfortunately, this assignment conflicts with a planned date with Jimmy, who Savvy is finally, slowly, starting to get closer to thinking of her in a not-so-daughterly way. Meanwhile, Bill assigns an eager photographer named Terry Banyon to accompany Savvy to Meridian. Unlike Savvy, Terry really believes in all the stories they print in the Query, which are of course mostly made-up. Anyway, she doesn't think much of his intelligence, at first, but over the course of the book, she gains a bit more respect for him, even if he remains fairly naive.

When they get to Meridian, they find that everyone in town has gone crazy, experiencing hallucinations and such, ever since the Apple Festival, a couple days ago. The two of them spend a fearful night hiding out from the crazies, but the next morning, everyone returns to normal, with no memories of the past couple of days. They meet the mayor, Jordan Cullison, and a doctor named Frederick Benedict, who are trying to figure out what's been going on. Benedict gives Savvy directions for her investigation, which leads to a company called Agrotex. Meanwhile, the CDC shows up and quarantines the entire town.

Well, once again, I don't want to spoil any more of the story. But I should mention that in each book, Jimmy eventually shows up to offer Savvy some help. Information he uncovered this time helped her piece together the truth about what really happened, and who was behind it. And of course, eventually they go back home, and finally have that date....

As the third book begins, Savvy is getting over the flu, though she fears a relapse. Meanwhile, there's a mysterious contact who's been feeding her stories recently, about himself. He calls himself Count Yorga, and claims to be a vampire. She ends up going to the small town of Williams Crossing, Vermont, to meet him in person. She has a scary dream along the way, and some sort of unnerving stuff happens, before she even gets to the Stone River Inn, where she meets Count Yorga in a darkened room. And... things get scarier. They barely begin the interview, before he dies, possibly murdered, though that's not exactly a certainty.

Anyway, Savvy meets a man named Cooper Armistead, the son of the local coroner. And she learns of a disease called porphyria, that may have caused Yorga, whose real name turns out to be Michael Willmeyer, to display symptoms of vampirism. Meanwhile, an FBI agent named Frank Hoskins shows up, investigating Willmeyer's death. And then, the body disappears from the morgue. Savvy tries to investigate the story, with some help from Cooper, even while it seems her flu is returning. Though later, it becomes apparent that what's affecting her is something much more serious and bizarre than the flu.

Everything that happens in the book is fairly strange and confusing, and various people show up, and no one may be quite who they claim to be. But everyone has an angle on the mystery, some involvement that Savvy has to try to figure out. It's all kind of like a spy flick crossed with an X-Files episode, complete with occasional appearances of what Savvy thinks could be a UFO, as much as she disbelieves in such things. For much of the book, I half suspected that in the end, it would all turn out to be some fever-induced dream she'd been having, or something. But... it was all real. Even if everything was not exactly what it seemed.

I suppose it all made some kind of sense, in the end, even if there's alot that was never fully explained. Or maybe it was. I mean... it was essentially explained, but there remained some mystery about who everyone actually was. I guess. As usual, I don't want to reveal anything specific about how it ends, but I will say that I wasn't exactly satisfied. Of course, there was also more drama involving the Savvy-Jimmy relationship. Um... as far as I can tell, this is the final book in the series. I kind of would like there to be more, but then again, I'm kind of okay with this being the end. It's not what I'd call a good ending, with everything fairly up in the air, but whatever. It was an okay read, even if it was my least favorite of the series.

And the series itself... didn't really seem to be going anywhere. It was all sort of stuck in neutral, or rather going in circles. I dunno. I'd like to know if the relationship was ever really going to go anywhere, but I fear that it just might have always been... stuck. And the mysteries Savvy investigates... eh. I like the character, more or less, but... I dunno. It's all just sort of... whatever. Kind of a mixed bag. I like the stories, but... they could be kind of frustrating, in a way. I guess. *shrug* Not bad, though, really....