Ratings Are Murder

Bob Christopher, investigative reporter for Channel 3 in Los Angeles, is an old hand at ferreting out consumer fraud. He hardly feels that an all-out effort to reinstate Saint Christopher to the churchs calendar fits that category. Then the cleaning woman who had taken up the saints cause is brutally murdered. Bob, guilty because he brushed the old woman off, is compelled to search for her killer. He finds himself dodging cloudbursts, raccoons, spilled blood, and his obsessed boss, who needs Bobs presence on the six oclock news to improve the ratings. Adding to his problems is his elusive film editor, an entrepreneur usually too busy peddling stolen porno tapes to work on the program. Through this hectic action wander rain-soaked fans in weird costumes vying for places and prizes on the stations game show. They make it easy for suspectsdisguised as surgeons, nuns, and chickensto melt into the crowd. As Bob Christopher approaches dead center of the web of murder, blackmail, chicanery, X-rated films, and station politics that infest Channel 3s rickety building, he gets closer to a killer who is out to make the reporter his next victim.