cover image Necessary

Necessary

Ken Jackson. St. Martin's Press, $15.95 (215pp) ISBN 978-0-312-56257-1

In fictional Hunt City, Oklahoma, investigative reporter-turned-drunk-turned-headline-writer Nathan Necessary goes on the wagon and comes up with the story of his career. The Mob from Kansas City has been moving construction equipment around for years, ""blue-skying'' and making lots of money for themselves and for corrupt county and city commissioners. An anonymous call points Necessary toward a crooked construction foreman who almost kills our hero. Helped by an ambitious young copyboy, Necessary digs and, tricking an old acquaintance who's head of the K.C. Mafia, pries the lid off Hunt City's corruption. Unfortunately, it takes Jackson ( The Cutting Edge, The Sticking Point and book editor of the Tulsa World half the book to get things really moving. Even sober, narrator Necessary talks too much. His infatuation with journalism is voiced in a quasi-Faulknerian style that often descends to gobbledygook and/or cutesiness; some of his apercus are unintentionally funny. Other Necessary novels are planned. (November 17)