PLAIN BROWN WRAPPER

Newcomer Alex Powell thinks that the National Association of Black Journalists Conference will provide a welcome break from her twice-weekly Los Angeles Standard column—until she discovers that the reason her philandering old publisher Everett Carson hasn’t come down from his hotel room to accept the Journalist of the Year award is that he’s chilling the big chill. Urged on by her bosses and her friendly rivalry with friend Signe “Magnolia Mouth” Tucker at the L.A. Times, Alex is soon on, and all over, the wide-ranging case.