Journalist Rags Goldner is scarred and heartbroken after covering a devastating pandemic that rages in Baltimore for five years. She leaves the city with her partner in search of a simpler life in small-town Maryland--only to discover nothing in Canary is simple. A teenager is missing, and it falls to Rags to fight the forces of apathy, paranoia, and creeping fascism to learn the shocking truth about Effie Rutter's fate--and the fate of thousands like her. A mystery-thriller set in the very near future.
Journalist Rags Goldner is scarred and heartbroken after covering a devastating pandemic that rages in Baltimore for five years. She leaves the city with her partner in search of a simpler life in small-town Maryland--only to discover nothing in Canary is simple. A teenager is missing, and it falls to Rags to fight the forces of apathy, paranoia, and creeping fascism to learn the shocking truth about Effie Rutter's fate--and the fate of thousands like her. A mystery-thriller set in the very near future.
MISSING: A teenaged girl with lanky blonde hair and a sunburst tattoo on her cheek.
The holographic posters, brighter than day itself, lit up the air on every block of Main Street. They were the first thing Rags Goldner noticed as she and her partner Flint Sten turned onto the street.
The girlâs name was Effie, the poster flashed, and she was sixteen.
Effieâs pixelated image beamed down at Rags like a a celebrity unaware that her fifteen minutes of fame were up.
Rags refused to give a damn about the missing girl who, after all, she didnât know. Nor did she know much about the town, Canary, where the driverless ShareCar she and Flint had leased for their move had brought them. But missing kids make news, and as Canaryâs newly imported one-and-only newspaper editor, Rags knew sheâd be expected to do something about it. Which meant she wouldnât control the news hole on day one. Which meant all kinds of people would come at her to do one thing or another.
Rags hadnât been in town five minutes and already she could tell things were going to get complicatedâand complicated was the very thing she and Flint were trying to get away from. Damn all the politicians and peacekeepers and their gatekeeping bullshit, she thought.
âAh, crap,â Rags said aloud as the car made a final turn toward its programmed destination. Her twitch flared up: the muscles in her upper left cheek and the outer corner of her left eye performed an uncontrolled little dance.
âHuh?â Flint had not noticed the lit-up Effie because he was looking down, reading a screen. Rags knew he was immersed as usual in his own world.
âTurning Main Street into Times Square wonât help them find the girl,â Rags said. âWhat a waste. And all that light pollution.â She stretched her face, willing the twitch to stop. Flint held up his dataphone and aimed it at one of the digital posters as they cruised by. The static image of Effie sprang into augmented-reality motion: she turned her head, blinked, and laughed.
âStop doing that, Flint,â Rags said. âJust donât.â No way that girl, out there somewhere, is smiling.
âDonât get spun up so fast.â Flint looked over at her for the first time in hours. Their connection was like a faulty wire, fritzing on and off. âGive yourself some room to ramp up,â he said, putting his hand on top of her head in a familiar gesture: simmer down. It helped. The twitching nearly stopped. âWe havenât even come to a full stop yet. Pace yourself.â
âWell, look,â Rags said. âTheyâve plastered her face everywhere. Probably been like that for weeks.â
âYou think the storyâ about this girl has gone cold, right?â Flint said. âWhat do you call that?â
âBeat up. Iâm guessing the storyâs beat up. The first thing Iâm going to hear is they want me to flog it some more. Remind me, why are we doing this?â
âLetâs not,â Flint said, looking back down at his screen. âAnyway, it was your idea.â
As the ShareCar rolled noiselessly down Main Street, Rags at first saw just one person hanging around the deserted downtown: a woman standing on a corner who appeared to be waiting. For what? Rags wondered. Rags caught a dead look in the womanâs eyes as they slowly passed. A block further on, Rags watched a man and a woman in shabby coats, who appeared to be arguing, their faces contorted with anger. The man handed the woman a bicycle pump, or so it appeared to Rags. She handed him in return a loaf of bread. What kind of town is this?
The ShareCar parked curbside at 326 Main Street. For well over a century, the little brick building, sandwiched between other little brick buildings, had housed the Canary Courant. A chatty little newspaper, the Courant, as Rags knew from her research, printed anything and everything within the bounds of what people once called âcommon decencyâ about the town of Canary, a tiny hamlet in the northwestern corner of Maryland, not far from the Pennsylvania border. The kind of town that flew under the radar for anyone who did not live there.
The fact that the Canary Courant was still a going concern in 2030 was astounding, even mysterious, and a key reason that Rags was here. Though perhaps not the only reason. The paperâs survival was even more of a puzzle when one considered that the town itself, which had been shriveling for decades, was now skeletal. The pandemic, which everybody called The Big One, had raged for nearly five years. It hollowed out an already hollowed out place, killing off over two-thirds of the elderly population living out their days in Canary. Those folks never knew what hit themâtheir dreams of slipping into gracious idleness on their front-porch rockers, eating breakfast on the cheap at the town diner, destroyed in an agony of fever and blood.
On Canaryâs rural outskirts, on their way into town, Rags had seen the crematorium, a hulking cinderblock rectangle erected for one single purpose: to incinerate the infected dead into piles of decontaminated black ash. She was sure Flint missed itâthough it was very hard to miss, rising up from a flat expanse of undeveloped landâjust as heâd missed seeing Effie until she pointed it out. Like Iâm his goddamn tour guide.
Now, nearly two years after the Big One had officially been declared over, Rags suspected on arrival that Canaryâs survivors were like a mouth full of missing teethâfamilies broken by a plague that took not merely the elderly but also children and their parents with a seemingly vicious and terrifyingly random determination. With an emphasis on random. Survivors everywhere were known as âthe Luckies,â though Rags only ever used that term in its most ironic sense.
And yet, even in a near-ghost town like Canary, in a still-brittle economy, in a world where print media was a rare novelty, the ink-on-paper edition of the Canary Courant lived on, as quirky and creaky as Miss Havisham in the attic, each folded issue tossed at sunrise every Wednesday and every other Sunday into doorways and onto walkways by a young father and son living on gig income.
Rags deliberately suppressed her own journalistic instincts when it came to figuring out how this newspaper managed to keep going years past its natural expiration date. Turning a blind eye to its improbable existence was both expedient and convenient for her. She knew that income from print adsâabout as old-fashioned as you could getâwas the sole reason the paper was able to keep going. It surely wasnât due to subscription revenue. But she didnât know why anyone would buy print ads in a tiny newspaper serving a dying community in a digital world. Thereâd be time, she figured, to get to the bottom of that.
The main thing was that this improbable job as the Canary Courantâs editor came her way at a time when she and Flint were looking for an escape hatch that would take them away from the exhausting hysteria and suffocating autocracy that made post-pandemic big-city living unbearable in countless ways. They came to Canary in search of a simpler lifeâthough Rags, if pressed, could not readily have defined what that would look like. Freedom from fear? Freedom to forget? She kept these notions to herself because she did not think Flint would admit to any of itâlet alone acknowledge the possibility.
Rags had worried before they arrived that an out-of-the-way place like Canary might have borne an influx of people seekingâor imaginingâthat this place would prove to be some kind of oasis. But from the little sheâd seen so far, there was nothing oasis-like about this town. The garish and intrusive billboards of the missing Effie radiated an anxious thrum, nothing like a small-town welcome.
Rags and Flint left the ShareCar with programmed instructions to continue on and wait for them at the house they were renting a few blocks from Canaryâs miniscule town center. The entire move, including Ragsâs new job, had been planned remotely, so this was their first time actually in Canary. In the grand scheme of things, given the terrifying and unpredictable upheavals theyâd already lived through, moving hundreds of miles away to a new place sight unseen didnât feel at all risky.
From the outside, the newspaper office mimicked the virtual reality images Rags had already seen online. A plate-glass window with old-fashioned gold lettering rimmed in black spelled out The Canary Courant. Since 1910. Rags doubted there was anything very âcurrentâ about it; the very name advertised its status as a relic with a pretentious echo of French. Rags wondered who else knew that courant in French had more than one meaningânot just âcurrentâ but also âordinary.â Someone must have had the lettering on the window repainted many times over the yearsâand who even knew how to do that sort of thing, anymore?âbut this was a line item Rags wasnât going to worry about. She was here on purpose yet still felt faintly ridiculous about the whole thing.
All this ye-oldy feel-good yester-year crap, she thought. Some kind of amusement park for blinkered folks. A post-apocalyptic Disneyworld? Or maybe Westworldâa place where you could trick yourself into relaxing, just for a moment.
Yet here she was, along with her IT-guru partner Flint, a software developer steeped in AI arcana, who was definitely not the ye-oldy type. Fitting in, for both of them, was beside the point. Rags figured theyâd both settle for some kind of new equilibrium. She waved her dataphone in front of the digi-lock and the heavy front door swung open. The newspaper office was a step up from the threshold because, Rags learned later, the floor had been reinforced a century ago to support the heavy metal printing presses that used to take up a third of the space with their loud, clackety racket.
And here she is, like part of the furniture, Rags observed as she entered the square-shaped newsroom, the old floor creaking. A woman likely more than twice Ragsâs ageâa surprise in and of itself, in this day and ageâstood up quickly from a battered wooden desk, her chair scraping against the floor. Rags knew only her first name, Merry. She was tall with broad shoulders, like a swimmer, dressed in loose-fitting wrinkled clothes, her hair silver-grey and so long it touched her buttocks.
âYouâre here,â Merry said with a slightly accusatory edge that did not escape Ragâs notice, as though sheâd been doing something she shouldnât.
âYup,â Rags said, her eyes flicking around the room. She made a quick mental list of all the things she intended to change. Rags hated clutter the way healthy people hate cancer: it was offensive, invasive, and should be eliminated quickly and surgically. The heavy furniture would have to go, and the old-fashioned filing cabinets, and the shelf of tacky journalism awardsâthe fake-gold winged angels, the stupid quill pens mounted on blocks of glass. Rags guessed that most if not all of the people whoâd won those awards were long dead, one way or another. Sheâd call someone as soon as possible to haul all this crap away. The place looked like a mausoleum, for chrissakes. And that told her all she needed to know about Merry, who radiated the territorial energy of a fox guarding its cubs.
âIâve got tomorrowâs front page made up on screen,â Merry said, standing rigidly by her desk. âI suppose you want to see it.â Rags saw Flint make a tiny, familiar gesture: flicking on his ear discs, so he could drown out the voices around him and listen to the soundtrack of his choice. With this personal sound cushion enveloping him, Flint glided around the room like a restless ghost, ignoring the two women, fingering every piece of tech there was, and there wasnât much. Rags turned her attention to Merryâwatching her watching Flint, to see how much this invasion of Merryâs claimed space unsettled her. Rags didnât bother to introduce them, as Flint wasnât likely to visit the newsroom again.
âIs it all about the missing girl?â Rags asked.
âIs there another big story in town Iâve missed?â Merry asked, her blue-grey eyes staring icily at Rags. âBecause if so, be my guest. Youâve got two whole hours until we send the file to the printers.â Merry stepped away from her desk, as if inviting Rags to step in. Rags read the gesture as it was intended: What the fuck do you know?
Well, this wasnât going to be pretty. In that moment, Rags had to admit to herself that while she thought she longed to live in a place where she could pursue small stories of no consequence, instead of big ones that traded in life and death, she was never going to check her personality at the door. She wouldnât look for trouble, but she wouldnât back away from a fight, either, especially if she knew going into it that she had the upper hand. She was editor-in-chief, after all, not Merryâa hold-over from a previous regime with an ill-defined job, as far as Rags knew.
Rags sat down at a battered desk nearly identical to Merryâs and began opening drawers, which contained random bits of long-obsolete office junk: Post-It notes, ballpoint pens, paperclips, a box of peppermint Tic-Tacs. Rags popped a Tic-Tac in her mouth and bit down hard; it was stale and tasteless.
âThatâs Freddyâs desk,â Merry said.
âYou mean it was,â Rags said.
âFor a long time, yeah. He was a damn good copy editor. Nothing got past Freddy. Thatâs what everybody said.â
âExcept the Big One, Iâm guessing,â Rags said, without an ounce of sympathy. âSnuck right up on him.â
âYeah, it did,â Merry said flatly, turning back to her screen. âSo whatâs your plan, Polly?â
âDonât call me Polly. Call me Rags.â
âI was told the new editor-in-chief is named Polly,â Merry said, as if trying to catch Rags in a lie. âI wasnât told anything about somebody named Rags.â
âYet here I am,â Rags said, rising from Freddyâs chair. She stood behind Merry and looked at the screen. âHow many stories on this girl, Effie, have you run this month, Merry?â
âWe try to post something every week.â
âWhy?â Rags asked.
âWhy? Â Because weâre trying to flush out new leads, PolâRags.â
âAre there any?â Rags asked, scrolling around the digital home page of the Courant. Merry hovered over her, as though she feared Rags would break something.
âNot in over a week,â Merry said.
âSo itâs a beat-up story but you keep milking it for, what, sympathy?â
âNo!â Merry said, turning red. âYou donât have any children, do you? Because if you did, youâdââ
âBury it,â Rags said.
âYou want me to bury the lead story? And replace it with what?â Merryâs cheeks flushed. She bit her lower lip. Rags noted how little it would take to get her really and truly riled up.
By this point, Flint had found an ancient PC from 2010 sitting on a dusty windowsill and he was taking it apart, down to the motherboard and its old components. Rags knew he was going to wait her out, and this would keep him happily occupied until she was good and ready to leave. He was patient in this type of situation, which Rags appreciated; his tolerance of her own need to press on, push hard, was essential to balancing them out. Maybe here, finally, sheâd find a way to press less, though the situation was not promising in that respect.
Rags touched Merryâs screen to scroll through the pages of the main news well. It was only a couple of pages long before you hit sports, the crossword (unkillable), and then those unaccountably robust print ads listing everything from flying lessons to bizarre personals. She told Merry to make the lead a story sheâd spotted about a leaking septic tank and to bury the Effie story right before the sports section. The need for the switch was obvious. The Effie story had had its day, and anything that remotely threatened public health, like a septic tank problem, belonged well above the fold. It was a thin fold, in any case, despite the ads.
âAnd when the next kid goes missing, you want us to bury that, too?â Merry asked.
âWhat do you mean, the next kid?â Rags asked.
âItâs going to happen,â Merry said, biting her lip.
âYou donât know that.â
âYou donât know anything,â Merry said.
âThen tell me, Merry. Tell me what I donât know.â
Rags could see Merryâs chest rising and falling, as if she was struggling to hold something in. But Merry said nothing.
 âSwitch the stories,â Rags said. There was no way sheâd back down and let Merry have her way. And besides, if there was nothing new to report on the Effie case, then there really wasnât a compelling reason to give the story the banner headline for the week. Rags had no qualms about her decision. âFlint, letâs go find our new home.â
Flint had his head deep inside the guts of the old PC heâd found. She called to him again. He straightened up, dusted off his hands, and followed Rags out without a word to Merry, leaving the deconstructed computer in bits and pieces on the desk.
First and foremost, a large thank you to Reedsy Discovery and Amy L. Bernstein for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.
After being handed this ARC by Amy L. Bernstein, I was curious to see how things would play out. Set in the near future, the story is a little mystery, with a peppering of dystopia and some self-discovery tossed in for good measure. Bernstein keeps things unique and memorable for the reader, even if the product may not have been something that gripped me as much as I would have liked.
Rags Goldner has been though a great deal after a pandemic has taken hold over the world for the last number of years. Sheâs seeking a fresh start and leaves with her partner, Flint, for a small Maryland town, hoping to find herself once more. The town of Canary offers much to Rags, including a missing teenager, who is all the talk of the town. Effie Rutter must be out there,but Rags must also cut through a bunch of emotional red tape to get to the truth. The mystery rages on with little hope of a simple answer.
While Rags and Flint try to pick up the pieces, they are faced with some daunting experiences that will push them to the brink. This is a new world, one where hope hangs by a thread and no one appears to know what waits around the corner. Both will have to pull up their bootstraps and face reality, even if it does not have all the answers they hope to find. Plus, with Effie still out there, someone has to care enough to push onwards and not let sensationalised journalism take over. Bernstein does well to paint a dreary picture, even if the content was not as tantalizing as I might have hoped.Â
Amy L. Bernstein has shown that she can write and has a great deal to say. Her delivery is strong and she has ideas to share, but it is perhaps the content that failed to grip me to its fullest extend. Dystopian novels are hit and miss for me, as are things surrounding some ominous larger event. Still, Bernstein does well to keep the story moving forward and kept me guessing how things might resolve themselves by the final page turn.
Good novels have a strong narrative, while great ones pull you in and wonât let go until all is settled. For me, Bernstein offered up something good and kept things flowing with ease. Her narrative is well-paced and allows characters to set their personalities as the larger story progresses. There are some wonderful plot twists and that helps the reader see how the protagonists evolve throughout the piece. I was not as hooked as the dust jacket blurb would have led me to hope, but that may be my short attention span these days. I needed something with more action and a quicker delivery. All the same, many readers may really enjoy Bernsteinâs work and I wish them well!
Kudos, Madam Bernstein, for a great effort. I hope many find something wonderful in what you have to say and latch on.