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Overview
Widely acclaimed for his groundbreaking crime novels Booked to Die and The Bookman's Wake, award-winning author John Dunning triumphantly returns with a riveting new thriller that takes us back to the summer of 1942, when radio was in its prime, when daylight saving time gave way to "wartime," when stations like WHAR on the New Jersey coast struggled to create programming that entertained and inspired a nation in its dark hour.Into this intense community of radio artists and technicians in Regina Beach, New Jersey, come Jack Dulaney and Holly Carnahan. They are determined to find Holly's missing father, whose last desperate word came from this noisy seaside town. Holly sings like an angel and has what it takes to become a star. Jack -- a racetrack hot-walker and novelist who's hit every kind of trouble in his travels from sea to sea -- tries out as a writer at WHAR and soon discovers a passion for radio and a natural talent for script writing.
While absorbing the ways of radio, from writing to directing, he meets some extraordinarily brave and gifted people who touch his life in ways he could not have imagined -- actresses Rue, Pauline, and Hazel; actor-director Waldo, creator of the magnificent black show Freedom Road; and enigmatic station owner Loren Harford, among others.
Jack's zeal for radio is exceeded only by his devotion to Holly, who needs his help but who is terrified for his safety. Strange things are happening in Regina Beach, starting with an English actor who walked out of the station six years ago and was never seen again. And Holly's father is gone too, in equally puzzling circumstances. As Jack and Holly penetrate deeper into the shadows of the past, they learn that someone will do anything, including murder, to hide some devastating truths.
In a stunning novel that transcends genre, John Dunning calls upon his vast knowledge of radio and his incisive reading of history to create a poignant, page-turning work of fiction that sheds new insights on some of the most harrowing events of the twentieth century. Like E. L. Doctorow's Billy Bathgate or Caleb Carr's The Alienist, Dunning's brilliant tale of mystery, murder, and revenge brings to life another time, another place, another world.
Synopsis
It is the summer of 1942. It is wartime. Radio stations like WHAR, in the seaside town of Regina Beach, New Jersey, struggle to inspire the nation. Writer Jack Dulaney's zeal for radio is exceeded only by his devotion to Holly Carnahan. Her father is missing. Somebody will do anything -- including murder -- to hide some devastating truths.
Publishers Weekly
Dunning's obvious love for radio as a medium of artistic expression and his knowledge of its history go a long way toward redeeming an occasionally heavy-handed narrative that takes a turn for melodrama several times too often. It's May 1942, and Jack Delaney--32, a published but impoverished Southern novelist and short story writer--is working in the stables of a racetrack in Oakland, Calif. A fight with some soldiers who mistake Jack's draft deferment (he is deaf in one ear) for cowardice puts him in a work camp until his traveling companion, an out-of-work radio actor named Kendall, helps him escape. But Kendall is soon killed, sending Jack on a complicated chase cross-country, seeking the girl he left behind and her father, who seems to have stirred things up by mailing Jack some top-secret material. Gaines manages to bring to life a large cast of eccentric radio types, Nazi spies and IRA sympathizers: all that's missing is real sound effects to make this an elongated version of "The Shadow" or "Secret Agent X-9." Simultaneous release with the Scribner hardcover. (Jan.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewJohn Dunning is a first-rate suspense novelist whose best work has directly reflected the various facets of his career. His experience as an antiquarian book dealer served as the basis for his award-winning Cliff Janeway novels, Booked to Die and The Bookman's Wake. His work as a historian of the early days of radio (On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio) now provides the backdrop for his latest book, a big, enthralling period mystery called Two O'Clock, Eastern Wartime.
Two O'Clock, Eastern Wartime takes place during the summer of 1942, just months after America's entry into World War II. Its appealing hero is Jack Dulaney, a former novelist whose damaged eardrum has kept him from being drafted. In the wake of a pair of personal tragedies (the death of his oldest friend at Pearl Harbor, the end of his love affair with Holly Carnahan), Jack has lost his way. As the novel opens, he is living in California and serving a three-month sentence for assault. When word reaches him that Holly is in some sort of trouble, Jack escapes and makes his way to Holly's home in rural Pennsylvania. From there, he follows an enigmatic series of clues that lead to a small New Jersey resort town called Regina Beach.
In Regina Beach, Jack makes a number of concurrent discoveries. First, he locates Holly, who has begun to make a name for herself as lead singer in a local band. Second, he uncovers evidence of a complex conspiracy that may have resulted in the death or disappearance of Holly's father, a handyman employed by WHAR, the Regina Beach radio station. Third, he discovers his own affinity for the powerful, largely untapped medium of radio. After spending a brief apprenticeship writing "continuity" to fill the gaps between scheduled programs, Jack finds his voice and produces a series of original, controversial radio dramas that test the limits of the form.
From this point forward, Two O'Clock, Eastern Wartime follows two interconnected paths: Jack's development of his own latent gifts and his simultaneous pursuit of the truth behind the disappearance of Holly's father, a disappearance that gradually sheds light on the tragic political history of an increasingly violent century. Dunning's knowledge of -- and affection for -- the world of old-time radio suffuses the narrative and lends its central dramas an aura of unimpeachable authenticity. The result of all this is a compulsively readable novel that works on a number of levels: as a mystery, as a meditation on history, as a novel of character, and as an artfully detailed portrait of a vibrant, vanished era.
--Bill Sheehan
Bill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, has been published by Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com).