Mystery readers tag along with a tenacious reporter

January 23, 2009|Chuck Leddy

Jan Brogan has written a satisfying, fast-paced mystery about an investigative reporter who delves into the dark underworld of online crime, obsessively pursuing a story about a ring of well-connected pornographers who exploit teenage girls. The reporter in question is Hallie Ahern, and she writes for the Providence Morning Chronicle. While Brogan, an occasional correspondent for the Globe, guides her readers into the murky subculture of child pornography, she also shows us the complex inner workings of a newspaper that's quickly losing revenues to online sources and struggling to survive.

Hallie is a complex, fully realized character riddled with contradictions. As she aggressively pursues the child-porn story, battling both criminals and shifting winds inside the newsroom, she also longs for stability. Her live-in boyfriend, Matt, is a prosecutor for the Rhode Island attorney general's office, a fact that creates conflicts in their relationship, since each needs to keep professional secrets from the other. Most of all, Hallie is conflicted about her motives. Is she so obsessed with the child-porn case because she wants to protect teenagers, or because she wants to boost her career and her paper's flagging circulation?

Hallie's investigation begins when she happens on a soft-core-porn video featuring two bikini-clad teenagers at Rhode Island Buzz, a social networking website. She sets up a meeting with one of the girls at an electronics store. Here, Hallie sees an older man lurking in the webcam section, looking to pick up teenage girls. With this evidence, Hallie goes to her editor asking for the go-ahead for an investigative story.

She gets it, mostly because her publisher wants to hit back at Rhode Island Buzz, which is taking readership and revenues away from the Chronicle. As Hallie's editor, Dorothy, explains it: "When I mentioned your story, and how you'd found that kiddie beach clip posted on the Buzz, Ian got all excited. He says the story has juice."

Brogan skillfully tracks Hallie's investigation, keeping her narrative moving at a page-turning clip and continually, dramatically raising the stakes for all involved. Hallie interviews one of the girls, Whitney, in person, and she offers the reporter a number of leads. When Whitney ends up mysteriously dead in a shopping mall, supposedly overdosed on heroin, Hallie is crushed and redoubles her commitment.