THE FOURTH WALL

A cute, pint-sized version of Roz Russell in His Girl Friday reluctantly covers one story, stumbles onto several more—and almost gets killed in the process.

Muttering that the scheduled Starlight protest is hardly news—the theater has been threatened for ten years or so—Alex Bernier, notepad in hand, waits for the speakers to arrive. Nobody shows, but the demolition is delayed when Barry Marsh, middle-aged Arts Coalition lothario, ingests Viagra against doctor’s orders and keels over. Soon thereafter, Save Our Starlight volunteer Sissy Dillingham, Marsh’s rumored lover and his wife’s best friend, becomes a hit-and-run victim, leaving the theater without a champion. Alex, sniffing out a good story, blunders onto an even bigger headline when the body of actress Ashley Sinclair, last seen in 1926, is found bricked up in the Starlight walls. What else? Alex’s boyfriend Cody, a hero cop, is being pursued by his ex-wife; Gordon, a New York Times reporter, is scooping her; and science reporter Mad is drinking the upstate dry. Alex is lied to by former child actor Robert Renssellaer, beaten to a pulp in the parking lot of her favorite restaurant, and menaced by a virtual bazooka.

The Gabriel Monitor newsroom is so real that you can smell the printer’s ink they no longer use. The plot collapses under the weight of last-minute suspects, but Alex (Ecstasy, 2003, etc.) is so adorable you may not care.