Deadline
About this ebook
After years of churning out copy as a newspaper reporter, Dalton Walker still can’t resist a fire. When a circus tent goes up in smoke, seventeen are killed, and one body in particular draws his attention: a little girl, charred beyond recognition. The adult that brought her there must have survived, but no one comes forward to claim the body. Why? It is a strange case, and the more Walker digs, the stranger it becomes.
At the same time, his new editor hands him a fluff piece—a profile of something New York City has never seen before: an Amish Rockette. As Walker investigates how a girl who was taught that dancing is a sin could have found her way to Radio City Music Hall, he begins to suspect that her apparent fear of reporters is more than just shyness. Danger surrounds the dancer, who is learning that life on the kickline can be just as perilous as a circus-tent fire.
About the author
John Dunning (b. 1942) is an American author of mysteries. Born in Brooklyn, he moved to Charleston, South Carolina, with his family in 1945. After failing to graduate from high school, Dunning held a series of odd jobs, first in Charleston and then in Denver, including work at a glass shop and at various racetracks, before taking a position as a copy boy with the Denver Post. He published his first mystery novel, The Holland Suggestions, in 1975, and went on to write several more books, including Denver (1980) and Deadline (1981). After a dispute with his publisher, Dunning quit writing to open a secondhand bookstore, Old Algonquin Books. He returned to the mystery field with Booked to Die (1992), which introduced the bibliophile homicide detective Cliff Janeway, who would go on to star in four more novels. Dunning is also an expert on old-time radio, and has published several reference works on the subject.