In new novel 'Carolina Beach,' former StarNews editor imagines crime wave in beach town

Robert R. "Rusty" Starr worked at the old Wilmington Morning Star and Sunday Star-News from 1978 to 1983, rising to copy desk chief. He went on to a distinguished career as editor and publisher of newspapers in Alabama and Florida.

Now retired, Starr isn't writing his memoirs but rather a series of picaresque novels that improve on the facts. His "Carolina Beach" is subtitled "Journalism as It Should Have Been," which gives away the game.

It's 1979, and Rusty is sharing an apartment at Carolina Beach with reporter Tom Clifford. One day, a masked Deep Throat type appears at the door and hands over a sheaf of documents proving that many of the beach town's officials have been robbing the taxpayers — using town funds to build a picket fence around a private cottage, install a garage, that sort of thing.

Since the city editor is a pompous incompetent, editor Andy Anderson entrusts Rusty and Tom with writing up a series of exposes.

This proves tougher than it sounds. Two public works employees, who could pass as members of Tony Soprano's crew, are following the two around. The apartment is ransacked. Cars are torched.

Undeterred, the duo get their facts together, and the stories hit the newsstands. The trail grows darker, though, when it turns out that the town has contracted out its solid waste services to a company from Fort Lee, N.J. — one with Mob ties.

Soon, snipers are opening fire at the Wilmington airport.

Rusty finds time to relax, though, in a series of romantic relationships that would leave James Bond envious. Yes, this really is journalism as it should have been.

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"Carolina Beach" is akin to Lynn Welborn's "Crazy Beach" novels, with a real time and place, but with a number of tall tales and confabulations plastered over them.

Starr uses real names. Charles "Andy" Anderson and Tom Clifford are real people, and several StarNews staffers appear. (Disclosure: Starr was my immediate supervisor for a while, and I appear as a very minor character.) Others are given pseudonyms, possibly to avoid libel suits.

He also throws in some period locales, such as The Red Carpet Lounge (the newsroom's semi-official watering hole) and the old Barbary Coast (which Starr recalls as serving really fine strip steaks).

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Starr, also, is no Carl Hiaasen. His text needs an editor, and his dialogue has little resemblance to any spoken English I've heard around here. Example: "Let's do a doobie and do it on the front porch where the sea breeze will whisk away the smell, and we will have a better view of anyone who comes by car or on foot."

Yes, it was the '70s.

Still, Starr can spin a yarn, and "Carolina Beach" is often entertaining.

There's a serious point to all this. When he retired, Carl Hiaasen wrote a column about the wave of "retail corruption" that will follow as small-town dailies and weeklies shut down.

Case in point: The Mount Olive Tribune, up the road in the Duplin County town of the same name, recently printed its final issue after 118 years in business.

With nobody watching the Town Hall or county government on a regular basis, it will be much easier for corrupt officials to thrive.

Most radio stations don't cover news beyond the police reports. Most TV news stories, with honorable exceptions, are three minutes, tops, and pegged to flashy videos. Only newspapers do this kind of work. and as the internet drains away their ad revenue, many of them are dying. What will take their place?

BOOK REVIEW

'CAROLINA BEACH: Journalism as It Should Have Been'

By Rusty Starr

Self-published, $12.99 paperback

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: In 'Carolina Beach' novel, a (fictional) crime wave hits NC beach town