The Cutaway by Christina Kovac

Evelyn (Evie) Carney had just told her just-back-from-deployment husband that she was leaving him.  In tears, she leaves the Georgetown restaurant to walk down M Street. Sunday night so not many people out to notice her.  She was supposed to call on her lover, a big time prosecutor in line to be the US Attorney for Washington, DC, but didn't. He got worried and called the DC Metro cops.

Evie Carney is missing.

Evie Carney. Bottom on the rung associate hired as a favor by a Paige Linden, partner at Simmons, McFadden & Ryan. One of those fancy, megabuck firms that lunch with sitting Senators, cocktails with members of the SCOTUS, managers of campaign donations that buy influence from judges and congressmen/women said funds help get elected.

Poor Evie? Hey, she managed to use an Ivy law degree to get in on the bottom floor of big-time business of law in the shadows of the most powerful city on earth. I guess it was those long deployments her husband had to do that left Evie maybe a bit lonely. Paige thought Evie and Ian might hit it off and introduced them.

The morning editorial briefing at a TV news station in DC includes a note about a young female attorney is missing and little else. Virginia Knightly produces the dinner and 11p news shows. She and her anchor, Ben Pearce, have worked together for some time and are a good team. For reasons even she can't verbalize, Virginia begins to take Evie's disappearance and run with it despite what her station manager says.

Virginia doggedly backtracks Evie's last couple hours prior to that fateful dinner. Finding little, she starts digging into Evie's history in DC, which hadn't been all that long. Virginia's video team uncover archived footage from the previous summer where Evie is seen in the background. Fundraisers, cocktail hours, courthouse steps, Evie pops up near someone with great power. Running in some fancy circles for the most junior of associates at SM&R.

Virginia interviews and re-interviews tangential players in this drama, sometimes making a note that takes her all directions of the DC compass. From her how newsroom to the DC Metro detectives (one of whom is an old flame), the DC attorney's office, other TV stations then it's on to friends, neighbors, co-workers a bit down the DC food chain. Evie's gotten herself mixed up in something far more dangerous that cheating on her husband.

I remember thinking while reading this, "is this was TV news producers do for a living?'' Sure, Virginia had a history as a field reporter and journalist so digging is in her DNA. If this is what producers do, I need to give them some serious props.

This is Christina Kovac's first novel after nearly 20 years work in the journalistic trenches in the DC area and the book sure does offer a reality that only one in the biz would know. The detail of the investigative news process, station politics, legal finagling and relationships is impressive indeed. For me, this book tics a lot of items on my list: DC based-check, murder mystery-check, bulldog investigative journalist-check, legal thriller-check.

Lot to like about this. Sure do hope Kovac isn't a one & done.

Available March 21, 2017

ECD