The Morning Show Murders

September 21, 2009
Roker (Al Roker's Big Bad Book of Barbecue
) teams with Lochte (Sleeping Dog
) on a solid, exciting crime novel that revolves around a fictional TV program much like NBC's The Today Show
. Billy Blessing, a New York City celebrity chef who owns a restaurant and does a variety of segments on Wake Up, America!
, has just begun filming a reality food show when he becomes a suspect in a murder case after Rudy Gallagher, Blessing's executive producer on the show with whom he has clashed, dies after eating some poisoned coq au vin from Blessing's restaurant. When the Manhattan DA shut downs the restaurant and Gallagher's replacement suspends him from his main television gig, Blessing turns sleuth. The gold standard for investigating network TV skullduggery is still the late William DeAndrea's Matt Cobb series (Killed in the Ratings
, etc.), but snappy prose and well-developed characters will leave readers wanting to see more of Blessing.

October 15, 2009
NBC's Today Show weather anchor debuts with a crisp puzzler played out on and off the set of an early-morning news show.

Chef Billy Blessing is well-named. His upscale New York eatery is booked solid, and he has his own show, Blessing's in the Kitchen, on the Wine and Dine Cable Network, plus a regular spot on Wake Up! America. But his charmed life screeches to a halt when his producer dies after eating a poisoned dinner from Blessing's Bistro. NYPD's Detective Solomon, who thinks of coq au vin as chicken with gravy, shuts down Blessing's joint, letting him know that even though Billy quarreled with Rudy shortly before his demise, and even though Rudy was canoodling with Billy's old squeeze, TV exec Gretchen Di Voss, Billy isn't his only suspect—just his main suspect. But Chef Billy isn't addled by too much sauce barnaise; he knows that Rudy was in Iraq when a mercenary from Touchstone Security was killed in a Baghdad bar. Cameraman Phil Bruno has some tape of the fight, but before he can pass it to Billy and his Wake Up! costar Gin McCauley, Phil's Meatpacking District loft goes up in flames. Crude drawings left at the scene point to the work of Felix the Cat, a shadowy assassin who hits targets worldwide. What brings Felix to New York is a secret only Billy's Sabatier-sharp mind can penetrate.

Crackling dialogue and well-crafted settings lift Roker's initial collaboration with veteran Lochte (Croaked!, 2007, etc.) above the typical celeb roman-à-clef.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 1, 2009
Weatherman Roker is the latest celebrity to pen a mystery thriller, and it is a surprisingly engaging one (thanks, in part, to the work of coauthor and genre veteran Lochte). The hero is Chef Billy Blessing, food anchor for the fictional morning show Wake Up America! and owner of a very successful Manhattan bistro. After the mysterious death of one of the networks executives, Billys life takes a dangerous turn. Not only is he suspected of murdering the exec with a poisoned coq au vin but it quickly becomes clear that an international assassin has his sights set on Billy, prompting the chef to do his own investigating. Roker, with the help of Lochte, writes engagingly and, of course, knowledgeably about network television. But his other interests (in food and cartooning, for example) are also seamlessly integrated into the plot. Rokers trademark humor is in ample evidence, but there is plenty of action, too: a car-chase scene through the Lincoln Tunnel is remarkably vivid and true to life. Good fun for Rokers followers and cozy fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)