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Peter Martin, of Peter Martin & Associates, is the founding publisher of
the Canadian Book Review Annual.

Television news anchor Grant Munro appears to have it all: he is
obscenely well paid, he owns a vineyard in California, he sails and
climbs mountains in his spare time, he enjoys good heath, and his
marriage is a happy one.

But he’s 59, and his audience is shrinking; a younger, handsomer man
is after his job. In response to the demands of a business that is
increasingly abandoning serious news in favor of infotainment, Munro
finds himself having to negotiate blackmail (a story involving the
beautiful practitioner of big-league infotainment), corporate power
struggles, and a face-lift in order to survive in this world.

Canadian-born MacNeil, former co-anchor of the MacNeil/Lehrer News
Hour, has no trouble writing convincing dialogue. What is surprising,
given his familiarity with the strange world of American TV news, is the
implausibility of some of the storylines in this ultimately
disappointing novel.