FREE: bad seed

what is the book about? ;o)

Twenty-seven year old Alex Bernier is a reporter for The Monitor in the eccentric town of Gabriel located in the heart of New York State. It's the home of Benson University, so it's more transient and probably more interesting than many small towns. Bernier's beat is normally city government, but since The Monitor lost their police reporter, she's temporarily filling in for part of the trial coverage. Shelly Freeman is on trial for poisoning her husband Lane Freeman. Both were employees at Benson University and were notorious for their hateful marriage. Although there are more murders than one might expect in Gabriel, most don't make it to trial, so this has been headline news for the past month.

Read an excerpt of Bad SeedJust as the trial ends, Cal Ochoa is hired as the new cops reporter. Ochoa seems to fit in well; that is, he's "fundamentally as insane as the rest" and proving to be an enthusiastic patron of the Citizen Kane, the local bar. And her relationship with Officer Brian Cody is now approaching one year and still going hot and strong, except for her underlying fear that he's going to return to Boston. Alex is concerned for her "beer-swilling" best buddy Jake Madison who does the science beat. Although he seems to be doing his normal activities, running seven miles a day, going to the gym and drinking more than most and still surviving, he's "unplugged" in a strange way. For example he's not getting too excited about anything including the big weeklong conference on agricultural biotechnology being held up at Benson. Alex believes this has to do with his last girlfriend moving back to London, but since Mad's not talking, it's a guess. Madison deals with grief by increasing his normal doses of alcohol and caffeine, which also makes him a little less reliable around the newspaper