Newsman Buzz Buckley grapples with the moral myopia of TV station owner H.B. ("Half Baked") Baker while attempting to provide fair coverage to such divisive local issues as urban renewal, police-minority relations, opposition to the Vietnam War, and the long fight over racial imbalance in the schools which threatens to tear the city apart. Meanwhile he is carrying on a rollicking, Rabelaisian romance with Marsha, an old flame from high school, which unexpectedly founders. He then finds his interest in Judy, his city councilor daughter-in-law, ripening into more than fatherly affection. Judy...

Veteran journalist Durham Caldwell has written another steamy novel. This one centers on small town life. Warming himself at a Good Samaritan's fireplace after his car breaks down on a frigid winter night, New Yorker Colby Patterson spots the picture of an attractive young woman on the fireplace mantel. He learns she has "died of a broken heart" after her three-year-old daughter disappears. Weeks later, a young woman with facial features identical to those of the woman in the photo sits down opposite Colby in a crowded Manhattan lunchroom. He concludes she has to be the dead woman's missing...