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Beyond the Headlines: Great Suspense by RG Belsky

Beyond the Headlines by RG Belsky. Another terrific Clare Carlson Mystery.

Review + Author & Book Info + Excerpt + Rafflecopter Giveaway


Beyond the Headlines

She was a mega-celebrity—he was a billionaire businessman—now he’s dead—she’s in jail

Laurie Bateman was living the American dream. Since her arrival as an infant in the U.S. after the fall of Saigon, the pretty Vietnamese girl had gone on to become a supermodel, a successful actress, and, finally, the wife of one of the country’s top corporate dealmakers.

That dream has now turned into a nightmare when she is arrested for the murder of her wealthy husband.

New York City TV journalist Clare Carlson does an emotional jailhouse interview in which Bateman proclaims her innocence—and becomes a cause celebre for women’s rights groups around the country.

At first sympathetic, then increasingly suspicious of Laurie Bateman and her story, Clare delves into a baffling mystery which has roots extending back nearly fifty years to the height of the Vietnam War.

Soon, there are more murders, more victims, and more questions as Clare struggles against dire evil forces to break the biggest story of her life.

To purchase the book, click on any of the following links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller
Published by: Oceanview Publishing
Publication Date: May 4th 2021
Number of Pages: 336
ISBN: 160809409X (ISBN13: 9781608094097)
Series: The Clare Carlson Mystery Series, 4 (This can be read as a stand alone mystery.)


My Thoughts on Beyond the Headlines

In Beyond the Headlines, Laurie Bateman, supermodel, actress, and the wife of an incredibly wealthy businessman, finds herself arrested for his murder. Television reporter Clare Carlson arrives at the jail to do an emotional and exclusive interview and instead finds herself caught up in proving Laurie’s innocence.

The public’s hunger for a constant series of soundbites forces Clare to balance ratings with her integrity as a reporter. It’s a tricky situation that Belsky likely experienced firsthand during his years in the industry as he so aptly weaves the problem into the storyline.

RG Belsky writes his novels with the ferocity of a longtime reporter, building active scenes filled with snappy dialogue and a sharp eye for the human condition.

Beyond the Headlines is also far more than just a solid “whodunnit.” Belsky, a veteran of the Vietnam war, brings another side of that conflict to his plot. Rather than a US veteran returned from combat—a trope we’ve all seen before—Belsky shows readers a different consequence of the US involvement overseas.

Born Pham Van Kieu, Laurie Bateman arrived in America as a six-month-old infant when she and her mother fled the fall of Saigon. Belsky takes events from that long ago war and brings them to light in the present, reminding readers of the extensive reach of armed conflicts and the lifelong repercussions for both military personnel and civilians alike.

Nothing remains buried forever, no matter how many miles might stand between history and the truth.

That’s something RG Belsky and Clare Carlson have in common, a clear eye for finding the heart of the matter. With a lot of truth in good fiction and a lot of fiction in how we present “real events,” Belsky’s latest novel gives readers the perfect balance of both.


Excerpt from Beyond the Headlines

CHAPTER ONE

 “Do you know who Laurie Bateman is?” my friend Janet Wood asked me.

 “I do,” I said. “I also know who Lady Gaga is. And Angelina Jolie. And Ivanka Trump. I’m in the media, remember? That’s what we do in the media, we cover famous people. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it.”

 “Laurie Bateman hired me.”

 “As an attorney?”

 “Yes, as an attorney. That’s what I do, Clare.”

 We were sitting in my office at Channel 10 News, the TV station in New York City where I work as news director. I should have known something was going on as soon as Janet showed up there. We usually met at Janet’s law office which is big, with panoramic views of midtown Manhattan, and a lot nicer than mine.

 Janet never comes to see me at Channel 10 unless she has a reason.

 I figured I was about to find out that reason.

 It was early December and outside it was snowing, the first real storm of the winter. The snow started falling during the night, and by now it was covering the city with a powdery white blanket. Pretty soon the car exhausts and trucks would turn it into brown slush, but for now it was gorgeous. From the window next to my desk, the city had an eerie, almost unreal quality. Like something from a Norman Rockwell painting.

 My outfit for the day was perfect for the snowy weather, too. I’d walked in wearing a turtleneck sweater, heavy corduroy slacks, a blue down jacket with a parka hood and white earmuffs, scarf and mittens. The ski bunny look. I felt like I should have a cup of hot chocolate in my hand.

 “Why does Laurie Bateman need you as an attorney?” I asked Janet.

 She hesitated for what seemed to be an inordinately long amount of time before answering.

“Are we talking off the record here?”

“Whatever you want, Janet.”

“I need your word on that.”

“C’mon, it’s me. Clare Carlson, your best friend in the world.”

She nodded.

“Laurie Bateman wants me to represent her in divorce proceedings.”

“Wow!”

“I thought you’d like that.”

“Is it too late to take back my ‘best friend in the world/ off-the-record’ promise?”

Janet smiled. Sort of.

“How much do you know about Laurie Bateman?” she asked me now.

I knew as much as the rest of the world, I suppose. Laurie Bateman seemed to have the American Dream going for her. Since coming to the U.S. as a baby with her family after the fall of Saigon in 1975, the pretty Vietnamese girl had grown up to become a top model, then a successful actress, and finally, the wife of one of the country’s top corporate deal makers. She had a fancy Manhattan townhouse, a limousine at her beck and call and her face had graced the covers of magazines like Vogue and People.

Her husband was Charles Hollister, who had become incredibly wealthy back in the ’70s as one of the pioneers of the burgeoning computer age. He was a kind of Steve Jobs of those early days, and he later expanded into all sorts of other industries—from media to pharmaceuticals to oil drilling and a lot more. He was listed as one of the ten wealthiest businessmen in America.

When Hollister married Laurie Bateman a few years ago, there were a lot of jokes about the big difference in age between the two—she was so much younger and so beautiful. Like the jokes people made about Rupert Murdoch with Wendy Deng and then Jerry Hall, his last two wives. People always assume that a younger and pretty woman like that is marrying for the money. But Laurie Bateman and Charles Hollister insisted they were in love, and they had consistently projected the public persona of a happily married couple in the media since their wedding.

Except it now appeared they weren’t so happily married.

“Is she trying to divorce him to get her hands on his money?” I asked.

“Actually, he’s trying to divorce her and stop her from getting her hands on any of his money.”

“So the bottom line here is this divorce is about money.”

“Always is.”

“Isn’t there a pre-nuptial agreement that would settle all this?”

“Yes and no.”

“Spoken like a true lawyer.”

“Yes, there is a pre-nup. But we don’t think it applies here. That’s because other factors in the marriage took place which could invalidate the terms of the pre-nup they agreed to and signed.”

“Okay.”

I waited.

“Such as?” I asked finally.

“For one thing, Charles Hollister has a mistress. A younger woman he’s been seeing.”

“Younger than Laurie Bateman?”

“Much younger. In her twenties.”

“Jeez! Hollister’s such an old man I have trouble imagining him being able to have sex with his wife, much less getting it up for a second woman on the side.”

“Her discovery that he was cheating on her, along with a lot of other reasons, have turned Laurie Bateman’s life into a nightmare—a living hell—behind the walls of the beautiful homes they live in. She’s kept quiet about it so far, protecting the happy couple image they’ve put on for the media. But now she wants to let the world know the truth. That’s where you come in, Clare.”

Aha, I thought to myself.

Now we’re getting down to it.

I was about to find out the real reason Janet was here.

“Laurie Bateman wants to go public with all this,” Janet said. “She wants to tell her story in the media. The true story of her marriage to Charles Hollister. We know Hollister is going to use his clout to try and smear her and make her look bad, so that’s why we want to get her version out quickly. What I’m talking about here is an exclusive interview with Laurie Bateman about all of this. Her talking about the divorce, the cheating—everything. And she wants you to do the interview with her.”

“Why me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why not Gayle King? Or Savannah Guthrie? Or Barbara Walters or Katie Couric or Diane Sawyer or another big media name? I’m just the news director of a local TV station here.”

“She wants you, Clare. In fact, I think that’s the reason she hired me for her lawyer. She found out you and I were friends—and she’s hoping I can deliver you to her to do this interview on air with her.”

“I still don’t know why she wouldn’t want to go with someone really famous . . .”

“You’re famous too, Clare. You know that as well as I do. And that’s why she wants you. You’re as famous as any woman on the air right now.”

Janet was right about that.

I was famous.

It could have gone either way—I could have wound up being either famous or infamous because of what I did—but in the end I’d wound up as a media superstar all over again.

Just like I’d been when I won a Pulitzer Prize nearly twenty years ago for telling the story of legendary missing child Lucy Devlin—even though I didn’t tell the whole story then.

“Laurie Bateman’s life with Charles Hollister is a big lie,” Janet said to me. “Now she wants to tell the truth on air about all those lies she’s been hiding behind. Like you did when you finally told the truth on air about you and Lucy Devlin. That’s why she wants you to be the one who interviews her.”

I still wasn’t sure how I felt about all this new found fame I’d gotten from my Lucy Devlin story, but there was no question that if it got me this Laurie Bateman story . . . well, that would be a huge exclusive for me and the station.

“When can I meet her?” I asked Janet.


RG Belsky—Author of Beyond the Headlines

Beyond the Headlines

R. G. Belsky is an author of crime fiction and a journalist in New York City.

His new mystery, BEYOND THE HEADLINES, is the fourth in a series featuring Clare Carlson, the news director for a New York City TV station – and follows THE LAST SCOOP, published in 2020. The first Clare Carlson book, YESTERDAY’S NEWS, won the David Award at Deadly Ink for Best Mystery of 2018. The second Clare Carlson book, BELOW THE FOLD, was named Best Mystery 0f 2019 in the Foreword INDIES Awards.

He also is the author of two thrillers written under the pen name of Dana Perry – THE SILENT VICTIM (2019), THE GOLDEN GIRL (June, 2020) and HER OCEAN GRAVE (June 2021 – Bookouture).

Belsky previously wrote the Gil Malloy series – THE KENNEDY CONNECTIONSHOOTING FOR THE STARS and BLONDE ICE – about a newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News.

Belsky himself is a former managing editor at the Daily News and writes about the media from an extensive background in newspapers, magazines and TV/digital news. He has also been a top editor at the New York PostStar magazine and NBC News.

His previous suspense/thriller novels include LOVERBOY and PLAYING DEAD. Belsky lives in New York City.

To learn more about RG, click on his name, photo, or any of the following links: Goodreads, BookBub – @dickb79983, Instagram – @dickbelsky, Twitter – @DickBelFacebook – @RGBelsky


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Visit all the stops along the Beyond the Headline Tour!

05/01 Review/showcase @ CMash Reads
05/02 Review @ Book Reviews From an Avid Reader
05/02 Review @ The World As I See It
05/03 Showcase @ nanasbookreviews
05/04 Interview via Podcast @ Blogtalk radio
05/04 Review @ Just Reviews
05/04 Review @ Nesies Place
05/05 Showcase @ One More Book To Read
05/05 Showcase @ Reading A Page Turner
05/06 Guest post/showcase @ Books, Ramblings, and Tea
05/06 Showcase @ The Bookwyrm
05/07 Guest post @ Read and Review
05/08 Review @ Jane Pettit Reviews
05/09 Review @ Author Elena Taylors Blog
05/10 Showcase @ Archaeolibrarian – I Dig Good Books!
05/11 Guest post @ Novels Alive
05/12 Review @ thrilledtoreadya
05/13 Review @ @ rozierreadsandwine
05/14 Interview @ Quiet Fury Books
05/18 Review @ sunny island breezes
05/18 Showcase @ Celticladys Reviews
05/19 Review @ Books and Zebras
05/20 Showcase @ Im Into Books
05/21 Interview @ BooksChatter
05/24 Review @ Jersey Girl Book Reviews
05/26 Showcase @ 411 ON BOOKS, AUTHORS, AND PUBLISHING NEWS
05/30 Review @ A Room Without Books is Empty


Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite on-line retailers. And don’t forget many independent bookstores can order books for you and have them shipped to your home or for curbside pickup.

Amazon Kindle Monthly Deal, $1.99 May 1-31

For more information on All We Buriedclick on the link here to visit the home page.

Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020

Elena Hartwell

Author and developmental editor.

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. R.G. Belsky

    Thanks for this terrific review, Elena Taylor! – R.G. Belsky

  2. Wendy

    Thanks so much for the great review! I have read the other books in this series… this one is next. 🙂

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