The Underworld Story

Reporter Mike Reese of The Times-Gazette, a tabloid, is not only fired as the fall guy for writing the story that led to the murder of Turk Meyers who was about to testify against mob boss Carl Durham, Turk testifying unknown to the public until the story, that hit against Turk which also injured DA Ralph Munsey, but is also blacklisted among the big city newspapers. Sensing an opportunity to get back into the newspaper game on his own terms, Mike decides to buy half interest as Editor in The Sentinel, a community newspaper in blue-blooded suburban Lakeville, the paper recently acquired by Publisher Cathy Harris following the death of the previous owner, her father Winston Harris. Although Cathy appreciates the capital for the debt ridden paper, Mike's money which she requires to keep the paper operating, she ends up not appreciating Mike's cutthroat sense of doing whatever required for the paper to make money, especially as she knows the paper, focusing on local human interest stories, can't compete with the big city papers for hard hitting stories. What Cathy doesn't know is that Mike's agenda is to make money for himself, he striking shady deals behind the scenes about which she doesn't know. When a friend of Cathy's, Diane Stanton, the wife of Carl Stanton who in turn is the son of E.J. Stanton, a big city newspaper publisher himself of among others The Journal-News, is found dead in the woods in what looks to be suspicious circumstances, Cathy, after recovering from the initial grief, approaches the issue as another human interest story, while Mike sees it as a crime story off of which he and the newspaper can make money, especially when circumstantial evidence points to Diane's black maid and friend, Molly Rankin, as the possible murderer, Mike manipulating the situation toward that monetary end goal regardless of Molly's guilt or innocence and regardless of what effect his actions have on Molly. Mike's view and by association his professional antagonism with Cathy may change when both Munsey and Durham become enmeshed within the story, and Mike's life in the process is in jeopardy.