Bury the Lead

In one word: AMAZING

Highly entertaining and thrilling, full of twists and turns. I would absolutely love to read more from this author!

I love the cover art. So that's the good part. But something about this writing style didn't engage me at all. I felt dragged through it and mostly got lost, my eyes skimming the same paragraph over and over.

Sorry, but this one really wasn't for me. I think I also expected something completely different from that synopsis. Maybe more Clare Mackintosh sort of thing. I don't know.

Thank you NetGalley for the copy in exchange for my honest review.

Excellent!! I had to keep changing my guesses and in the end they turned out to be sort of right. Terrific plotting

Summary: A newspaper editor begins a social experiment using his newspaper and embedded advertising.

What I liked: After finishing Bury the Lead I had a deep and unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach. Just like a thriller should. Windwalker's writing delivers this unsettling feeling with flair and style. Her writing is witty and biting. The storyline was pertinent to what is going on in society today. The ending was deliciously dark and left me scratching my head. I loved that the ending wasn't laid out on a silver platter. It left a bit to my imagination and with a surreal feeling which was perfect for what I wanted.

What I didn't like: Nothing there was nothing I didn't like about Bury the Lead.

Star Rating: 5

This fascinating new novel from relative newcomer Windwalker is a treat and gem for readers who like a story to feed the mind and the soul. This is a writer with real talent and one that boggles the mind on the different levels that partake on the different platforms which present itself.

Starting out as regular novel, the story of Jefferson Payne begins in bed with a girlfriend who decides that she has had enough of the small town life and is going to start anew without her boyfriend. Jeff than carries on with his life as the editor of a small town newspaper and this is where we have a story that thrives on the mundane and quaintness of small town living.

The novel is a slow burn but this is where the author crescendos with her work because she doesn’t write throw away narratives but gives us a narrative where not much happens with bite. The first person narrative enters us into this world with vim and verve creating a tongue in cheek monologue of small town life.

The characters are very well developed and their personalities react in a realistic manner. They have quirk but they have real human endurance when faced with small town politics within the community. Jeff’s narrative is never cruel when faced with external characters and his point of view carries the proceedings to its unexpected conclusion.

Windwalker weaves a critical study of the world around us through the use of media and political circumstances. There are some hidden gems when the main character oversees the world at large through politics and news media as a whole that gives the reader food for thought. This works wonderfully within the premise of the novel and lifts the work to an even higher quality.

The plot is exciting and my mind never wandered as nothing really happens until the final third. The novel never dips in perspective or interest. Every word is savoured and digested within the readers mind. This is a novel that really caught me by surprise and there are so many more things I would like to reveal but that would ruin the novel for potential readers. As each person reads this novel, there will be a kaleidoscope of information that everyone will pick up separately based on their own experiences.

Excellently written, thought provoking, mind filling prose in a tight novel that will feed the mind and the soul in equal measures. This is an author to look out for. This is a definite must read that demands conversation after the final pages. A must for all reading circles and book clubs. A definite winner for the summer reader.

Not my usual read but thoroughly enjoyable, full of twists and turns to keep you guessing, would definitely read more from this author.

I would like to thank Netgalley & Blackspot Books for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you NetGalley and Black Spot Books for the free review copy!

Bury the Lead had so many twists and turns and I would originally come up with a guess, but then it changed. It was a great read and would definitely try more from the author! At times it did get a bit slow, but then picked right back up.

The book's cover is so friking gorgeous damnnn!
You can say that this book is a psychological thriller. I mean, there's not much of a thrill factor in it but still. So the main guy, Jeff, seems and claim to be a well known editor/journalist who's goal is to so uncover the deep dark truths of his city ranging from dog killers to murderers and whatnot. But the main scoundrel- the main antagonist is closer than you think.
I must say that it does feel a bit dragged at some points but after reading some pretty crappy books in the past couple of days, I really needed this one. Something light but thrilling at the same time

This is one of those books that you either love or you hate - and I Loved It!
The format was original - within the tale were the frequent newspaper headlines, crossword clues (do wish there had been an Afterword with the solutions!) and dictionary definitions. I do not read newspapers for the very reasons pointed out by this novel - fake news, sensationalised stories bearing very little regard to the truth.
The prose was so well written and at the end the reader was left with many questions. A fascinating read.
Just one criticism - too much blurb about the book, which I am glad to say I did not read first.
I look forward to reading more by this original author.
Very many thanks to Netgalley/Cassondra Windwalker/Black Spot Books for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

The premise for this book sounded great, but while reading it fell a bit flat. For a relatively short book, it took a long time to get to the meat of the story. While somewhat interesting, I found the interspersed tweets, crossword clues and headlines to cause the book to have a disjointed feel. It would have been better if they somehow pertained to the story and if there had been fewer of them. While not a particular bad read, it just wasn’t the suspense/thriller I was expecting.

Jeff Paine is the editor of a small-town newspaper in Colorado, trying to stay afloat in the Trump era. Bury the Lead opens with reports of mysterious mutilations of pet dogs in the town. We follow Jeff as he interacts with colleagues, chats to the police and other witnesses, and puts together a story for the paper.

We see a close community, with its own rhythms and routines and a compassionate one, where people take time to ask how Jeff is feeling now his girlfriend has gone. Beneath the gentle, folksy feel of the story though, is a darker undercurrent.

After Jeff juxtaposes the story of the dog mutilations with another about the problems of the homeless in the town, some residents put the two together in their minds and turn on a local homeless man. This leads Jeff to consider how we understand and interpret news and to embark on a new direction for the paper – with disturbing consequences.

A number of real, contemporary headlines interject the story. Seeing them without context makes you view them in different ways, makes you realise how strange and unhinged our world has become, how the unsettling events in Jeff’s life are emblematic of what’s happening in ours.

This is a timely and thought-provoking dark comedy about the news – what it does to us and what it says about us. It is interesting that the medium in this case is a traditional local paper, when all the concern in the public sphere is about digital media. It is a reminder of the power of language, for good and ill, and that propaganda is nothing new.

I loved the idea behind this book, but it felt all over the place. It was a confusing read. It kept my attention enough to finish it but I am left thinking "What did I just read?" Maybe this was the goal? The headlines throughout the book, fake news, etc. Maybe it is supposed to be just what it was for me, a mind trip. I suggest at least giving it a try!

Jeff Paine is a small-town newspaper editor who, depressed and bitter after his girlfriend left him and increasingly cynical about the state of news journalism, decides to try a little experiment in media manipulation of his own. Is Jeff mad, bad or just heartbroken? What’s his end game? And did Ada really leave of her own accord?

Interspersed throughout <i>Bury the Lead</i> are snippets of headlines, crossword clues, horoscopes and presidential tweets. Sometimes these connect to the story, but mostly they are incongruous, non sequiturs whose cumulative effect invokes the bizarre realm of ‘news’ and positions this book firmly in our current moment.

Jeff’s narration is bleak and cynical, preoccupied with the ways in which news is shaped and how it shapes us. It’s incisive and on-point, if a bit heavy-handed. Or maybe it’s just hard going because most of us are just as cynical as Jeff by now.

It can’t be easy to sustain a first person POV while also concealing much from the reader. Jeff’s clearly on a downward slide and there’s a lot of foreshadowing, but he won’t reveal his motives or what he’s really up to. As a result, the narrative is a little messy, but that worked for me because I was never quite sure what sort of book this would turn out to be, and it kept me guessing.

Bury the Lead defies categorisation: while it doesn’t quite hew to the usual conventions of a mystery or thriller, I found it tense, unsettling and unpredictable.

This book was about a local newspaper that was printed twice a week, the editor gave the journalists their assignments and he would pop into the local police station for any updates on possible stories for the paper.
He was a bit down as he couldn't contact his girlfriend so wasn't sure of the status quo and he lead quite a lonely life other then that. There was some strange stuff happening in the village which is reported in the paper.

This book was very descriptive and full of detail, not my usual type of book but it was alright and the ending made everything make sense.

Full review to come.
I deeply apologize, but life is a handful lately and I'm using all my free time to read, not review. I hope everybody understands.

A look at what the truth really is and whether it is always in the best interest to tell the truth and sometimes the facts are better not shared.