Cracks

Eight weeks ago, 30-year old Daphne Goodney stabbed her three children to death with a kitchen knife She had just turned the weapon on herself when she was apprehended by the police. Did she do it deliberately, or is she insane? District Attorney Mike Musoli has charged her with murder because, “not everyone who has psychological problems commits a crime.” His assistant -- Lauren Hanson, whom he has appointed to prosecute the case – appears to have a few psychological problems of her own! She fairly seethes with rage, insisting that the murders were deliberate and the suicide attempt was faked. Gino D’Angelo – a reporter for news-radio station WMLT, with an elderly Cocker Spaniel for a companion and a taste for jazz and opera – has covered the case since the first morning of the New Year, when a report of a disturbance in the area known as Poverty Row came blasting over the newsroom’s police scanner. When he learns that his friend, attorney Valerie Valente, has known Daphne since high school, and has now been retained to defend her, Gino sets out to learn the truth about the woman who was last heard telling her oldest child that they were “all going to heaven together.” Using a combination of investigative reporting, a bit of brazenness, sheer luck, and a piece of information supplied by a the man who founded the first radio station in Mohawk County back in 1939, Gino and Valerie manage to piece together a scenario worthy of a Greek tragedy. But, does it all add up to a finding of insanity? Could Mike Musoli and Lauren Hanson be right after all? The answer comes at the end of a devastating day in court, as the two attorneys battle over Daphne’s fate while her still-grieving husband struggles to understand what happened and why, and Gino and his media colleagues look on with a mixture of sorrow, shock, and horror. Along the way, Gino interviews a homophobic writer who talks like Foghorn Leghorn and claims to channel God Himself, covers several court cases ranging from a grandmother’s death at the hands of a drunk driver to the arraignment of a juvenile who may be responsible for the torture- murder of two young women, and courts the news anchor from a TV station in the next county; or is she courting him?