Murder Across the Board

Book excerpt: Small town politics are always the same comfortably dull sandbox bickering-even when your small town is the gateway to the nation's capital. Or so thought Paige Smith, editor of the Spectator weekly. His love life was in the tank, and he wasn't getting any younger, but the speed was about right for him until the April morning that the County Board meeting was gaveled to order by a fatal gunshot. Before long, it was clear that none of the people who'd filled his political columns for years were who they seemed-and things were getting dangerous for a quiet man who'd never been threatened by anything more lethal than a deadline. '.a fictionalized version of the [Arlington] County Board and those in the political spotlight. hilarious, but. unsettling." Arlington Sun Gazette, 4/8/04