Book ~ "Down to the Wire" (2010) David Rosenfelt

From Goodreads ~ A reporter for the Bergen News, Chris Turley could never measure up to his father. Edward Turley, a combination of Bob Woodward and Ernie Pyle, was one of the last great investigative reporters and a difficult man to impress. While stuck covering press conferences and town hall meetings, Chris, his father's legend in mind, has always dreamed of his own Pulitzer, however unlikely it seems.

Then one day while he's waiting to meet a source, a giant explosion takes out half of an office building next door. Shocked into action, Chris saves five people from the burning building. His firsthand account in the next day's paper makes him a hero and a celebrity.

And that's not all. The source's next tip delivers a second headline-grabber of a story for Chris, and suddenly his career is looking a lot more like his dad's. But then it seems this anonymous source has had a plan for Chris all along and his luck for being in the right place at the right time is not a coincidence at all. What seemed like a reporter's dream quickly becomes an inescapable nightmare.

Chris is a reporter working for the Bergen News.  He gets a call from a source named P.T. to meet him in a park as he has some information on a great story for Chris to write.  While Chris is waiting, the building across the street explodes.  Chris rushes in and saves five people and is considered a hero.  He gets a lot of notice when he writes about the experience first-hand in the newspaper.

P.T. touches base again about the information he was going to give to Chris which involves the city's mayor.  Chris is at the heart of this story and again writes about it first-hand.  He's attracting lots of positive attention ... until he just happens to be at the scene of a violent murder.  This is when Chris starts to realize that he perhaps being set up by P.T. who has ramped up his killings with random explosions.  Chris doesn't know why (though he suspects P.T. has is seeking revenge against his deceased father) and enlists the help of a friend who is a police officer.  As the amount of explosions escalate, the FBI are brought in and they start to suspect that perhaps Chris is P.T. to get attention.

I've read many books by this author, mostly his Andy Carpenter series, and this is a stand alone.  I like the writing style as it was a bit funny and sarcastic at times.  It is written in third person perspective with a focus on where the action is.  As a head's up, there is swearing.

I really like the Andy Carpenter series and thought this story was okay.  It was a bit farfetched as to how P.T. was able to execute so many explosions without getting caught and I didn't really buy why he was doing it.