45 results for "Thriller"

The Order

Daniel Silva
#1 New York Times Bestseller * #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller From Daniel Silva, the internationally acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author, comes a riveting new thriller featuring art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon. It was nearly one a.m. by the time he crawled into bed. Chiara was reading a novel, oblivious to the television, which was muted. On the screen was a live shot of St. Peter's Basilica. Gabriel raised the volume and learned that an old friend had died ... Gabriel Allon has slipped quietly into Venice for a much-needed holiday with his wife and two young children. But when Pope Paul VII dies suddenly, Gabriel is summoned to Rome by the Holy Father's loyal private secretary, Archbishop Luigi Donati. A billion Catholic faithful have been told that the pope died of a heart attack. Donati, however, has two good reasons to suspect his master was murdered. The Swiss Guard who was standing watch outside the papal apartments the night of the pope's death is missing. So, too, is the letter the Holy Father was writing during the final hours of his life. A letter that was addressed to Gabriel. While researching in the Vatican Secret Archives, I came upon a most remarkable book ... The book is a long-suppressed gospel that calls into question the accuracy of the New Testament's depiction of one of the most portentous events in human history. For that reason alone, the Order of St. Helena will stop at nothing to keep it out of Gabriel's hands. A shadowy Catholic society with ties to the European far right, the Order is plotting to seize control of the papacy. And it is only the beginning. As the cardinals gather in Rome for the start of the conclave, Gabriel sets out on a desperate search for proof of the Order's conspiracy, and for a long-lost gospel with the power to put an end to two thousand years of murderous hatred. His quest will take him from the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, to a monastery in Assisi, to the hidden depths of the Secret Archives, and finally to the Sistine Chapel, where he will witness an event no outsider has ever before seen--the sacred passing of the Keys of St. Peter to a newly elected pope. Swiftly paced and elegantly rendered, The Order will hold readers spellbound, from its opening passages to its breathtaking final twist of plot. It is a novel of friendship and faith in a perilous and uncertain world. And it is still more proof that Daniel Silva is his generation's finest writer of suspense and international intrigue.
HarperCollins Publishers 2021-02-16 432 pages

The New Girl

Daniel Silva
#1 New York Times Bestseller - #1 USA Today Bestseller - #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller Now you see her. Now you don't. THE NEW GIRL. A thriller of deception, betrayal, and vengeance. She was covered from head to toe in expensive wool and plaid, the sort of stuff one saw at the Burberry boutique in Harrods. She carried a leather bookbag rather than a nylon backpack. Her patent leather ballet slippers were glossy and bright. She was proper, the new girl, modest. But there was something else about her ... At an exclusive private school in Switzerland, mystery surrounds the identity of the beautiful raven-haired girl who arrives each morning in a motorcade fit for a head of state. She is said to be the daughter of a wealthy international businessman. In truth, her father is Khalid bin Mohammed, the much-maligned crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Once celebrated for his daring social and religious reforms, he is now reviled for his role in the murder of a dissident journalist. And when his only child is brutally kidnapped, he turns to the one man he can trust to find her before it is too late. What's done cannot be undone ... Gabriel Allon, the legendary chief of Israeli intelligence, has spent most of his life fighting terrorists, including the murderous jihadists financed by Saudi Arabia. Prince Khalid--or KBM, as he is known--has pledged to finally break the bond between the Kingdom and radical Islam. For that reason alone, Gabriel regards him as a valuable if flawed partner. Together they will become unlikely allies in a deadly secret war for control of the Middle East. The life of a child, and the throne of Saudi Arabia, hang in the balance. Both men have made their share of enemies. And both have everything to lose. Filled with dark humor, breathtaking twists of plot, and an unforgettable cast of characters, The New Girl is both a thrilling, page-turning tale of entertainment and a sophisticated study of political alliances and great-power rivalries in a dangerous world. And it is once again proof that Gabriel Allon is "one of fiction's greatest spies" (Kirkus) and Daniel Silva is "quite simply the best" (Kansas City Star) writer of foreign intrigue and suspense at work today.
HarperCollins Publishers 2020-02-25 464 pages

The Cellist

Daniel Silva
#1 New York Times Bestseller "The pace of "The Cel-list" never slack-ens as its ac-tion vol-leys from Zurich to Tel Aviv to Paris and be-yond. Mr. Silva tells his story with zest, wit and su-perb tim-ing, and he en-gi-neers enough sur-prises to star-tle even the most at-ten-tive reader."--Wall Street Journal From Daniel Silva, the internationally acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author, comes a timely and explosive new thriller featuring art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon. Viktor Orlov had a longstanding appointment with death. Once Russia's richest man, he now resides in splendid exile in London, where he has waged a tireless crusade against the authoritarian kleptocrats who have seized control of the Kremlin. His mansion in Chelsea's exclusive Cheyne Walk is one of the most heavily protected private dwellings in London. Yet somehow, on a rainy summer evening, in the midst of a global pandemic, Russia's vengeful president finally manages to cross Orlov's name off his kill list. Before him was the receiver from his landline telephone, a half-drunk glass of red wine, and a stack of documents.... The documents are contaminated with a deadly nerve agent. The Metropolitan Police determine that they were delivered to Orlov's home by one of his employees, a prominent investigative reporter from the anti-Kremlin Moskovskaya Gazeta. And when the reporter slips from London hours after the killing, MI6 concludes she is a Moscow Center assassin who has cunningly penetrated Orlov's formidable defenses. But Gabriel Allon, who owes his very life to Viktor Orlov, believes his friends in British intelligence are dangerously mistaken. His desperate search for the truth will take him from London to Amsterdam and eventually to Geneva, where a private intelligence service controlled by a childhood friend of the Russian president is using KGB-style "active measures" to undermine the West from within. Known as the Haydn Group, the unit is plotting an unspeakable act of violence that will plunge an already divided America into chaos and leave Russia unchallenged. Only Gabriel Allon, with the help of a brilliant young woman employed by the world's dirtiest bank, can stop it. Elegant and sophisticated, provocative and daring, The Cellist explores one of the preeminent threats facing the West today--the corrupting influence of dirty money wielded by a revanchist and reckless Russia. It is at once a novel of hope and a stark warning about the fragile state of democracy. And it proves once again why Daniel Silva is regarded as his generation's finest writer of suspense and international intrigue.
HarperCollins Publishers 2022-02-22 480 pages

A God in ruins

Uris, Leon
Master storyteller and international bestselling author of Redemption, Trinity, and Exodus, Leon Uris once again brilliantly interweaves historical fact with gripping fiction in this powerful novel of politics, family, intrigue, love, and the passions that rule human lives. Spanning the decades from World War II to the 2008 presidential campaign, A God in Ruins is the unforgettable story of Quinn Patrick O'Connell, an honest, principled, and courageous man on the brink of becoming the second Irish Catholic President of the United States. In an era morally unmoored, rife with armed separatists and fundamentalist zealotry, Quinn, the last great liberal of the Rocky Mountains, emerges as America's hope to reclaim its great past and its promises of the future. But Quinn is a man with an explosive secret that can shatter his political ambitions and threaten his life--a secret buried for over a half century that even he does not know.... Returning home at the end of World War II a decorated and wounded hero, Daniel Timothy O'Connell had moved his young wife, Siobhan, from the crowded streets of Brooklyn to the golden mountains of Colorado. Building a successful life as cattle ranchers, Daniel and Siobhan had everything they wanted--except a child. Desperate, they turned to the Church and adopted a beautiful three-year-old of mysterious parentage, a charming little boy they named Quinn Patrick. In riveting prose, Leon Uris unfolds Quinn's life as he matures from a restless youth into a brave Marine undertaking a deadly undercover mission, and finally, into an earnest, intelligent, and thoughtful leader willing take on the most vicious and malevolently destructive forces threatening the country. Here, too, are the two beautiful women who have always loved him--Greer, the lover driven by ambition and passion, and Rita, the sensuous, adoring daughter of his friend and mentor, painter and philosopher Reynaldo Maldonado. Through the years Quinn has made some powerful enemies who are determined to destroy him, including presidential incumbent Thornton Tomtree. A conservative computer mogul who built an electronic empire out of his father's Rhode Island junkyard, Tomtree is a right-wing pragmatist who will court the most dangerous and deadly elements of society and risk America s safety to achieve his own ambitions. From America's victorious past to its shadowed future, from the grandeur of Colorado's mountains to the enclaves of private militias hidden deep in the canyons of the Southwest's Four Corners, A God in Ruins races to a powerful, unforgettable conclusion. A sweeping novel of a man, a life, and a nation, it vividly brings to life memorable characters that will indelibly touch the heart and mind and illuminates the major crisis facing America at the dawn of a new millennium.
HarperCollins 1999-05-19 483 pages

With a Mind to Kill

Horowitz, Anthony
Behind the Iron Curtain, a group of former Smersh agents want to use the British spy in an operation that will change the balance of world power. Bond is smuggled into the lion's den - but whose orders is he following, and will he obey them when the moment of truth arrives? In a mission where treachery is all around and one false move means death, Bond must grapple with the darkest questions about himself. But not even he knows what has happened to the man he used to be.[Bokinfo]
Random House UK 2022-05-26 304 pages

Young Stalin

Sebag Montefiore,Simon Sebag Montefiore
Stalin, like Hitler, remains the very personification of evil but also one of the creators of today’s world. Now in an enthralling biography that reads like a thriller, Simon Sebag Montefiore unveils the shadowy, adventurous journey of the Georgian cobbler’s son who became the Red Tsar.What makes a Stalin? Was he illegitimate? Was his mother whore or saint? Was Stalin a Tsarist agent or Lenin’s chief gangster? Was his most notorious heist planned during his stay in London? Was he to blame for his wife’s death? If he really missed the 1917 Revolution, how did he emerge so powerful?Born in poverty, scarred by his upbringing, exceptional in his studies, this charismatic but dangerous boy was hailed as a romantic poet and trained as a priest but found his mission as fanatical revolutionary. He became the mastermind of bank robberies, protection-rackets, arson, piracy, and murder yet he was, uniquely part-intellectual, part-brigand. Surprisingly, he is also revealed as a scandalously prolific lover, leaving a trail of mistresses (varying from schoolgirls to noblewomen) and illegitimate children. Her is the arch-conspirator and escape-artist whose brutal ingenuity so impressed Lenin that he made Stalin (with Trotsky) his top henchman. The paranoid underworld of Joseph Conrad-style terrorism was Stalin’s natural habitat. Montefiore shows how murderous Caucasian banditry and political gangsterism, combined with pitiless ideology, qualified Stalin to demonstrate the Kremlin – and create the USSR in his flawed image. Based on massive research and astonishing new evidence in archives from Moscow to Georgia, YOUNG STALIN, companion and prequel to bestselling, prizewinning STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR, is a chronicle of the Revolution, a pre-history of the USSR – and an intimate biography: this is how Stalin became Stalin.
McArthur 2007 397 pages

The Kremlin Conspiracy

Joel C. Rosenberg
A New York Times , USA TODAY , and Publishers Weekly bestseller! More than 100,000 copies sold. "Rosenberg cranks up the suspense, delivering his most stunning, high-stakes thriller yet." -- Publishers Weekly "A stellar novel of riveting action and political intrigue." --Mark Greaney, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Agent in Place "Absolutely blown away by how good this guy is. . . . Simply masterful." --Sean Parnell, New York Times bestselling author of Outlaw Platoon "An uncanny talent for focusing his storytelling on real-world hot spots just as they are heating up." --Porter Goss, former director of the CIA "A full-throttle and frightening ride through tomorrow's headlines." --Brigadier General (U.S. Army, Retired) A. J. Tata, bestselling author of Direct Fire New York Times bestselling author Joel C. Rosenberg returns with a high-stakes political thriller set in Russia. Everything he learned to protect our president, he must use to take out theirs. With an American president distracted by growing tensions in North Korea and Iran, an ominous new threat is emerging in Moscow. A czar is rising in the Kremlin, a Russian president feverishly consolidating power, silencing his opposition, and plotting a brazen and lightning-fast military strike that could rupture the NATO alliance and bring Washington and Moscow to the brink of nuclear war. But in his blind spot is former U.S. Secret Service agent Marcus Ryker, trained to protect but ready to kill to save his country. A military thriller packed with suspense and international intrigue Edge-of-your-seat political dynamics inspired by current events Perfect for fans of Jack Carr and Ryan Steck
Tyndale House Publishers 2018-10 480 pages

Crooked

Austin Grossman
Acclaimed novelist Austin Grossman reimagines the ultimate American antihero. Richard Milhous Nixon lived one of the most improbable lives of the twentieth century. Our thirty-seventh president's political career spanned the button-down fifties, the Mad Men sixties, and the turbulent seventies. He faced down the Russians, the Chinese, and ultimately his own government. The man went from political mastermind to a national joke, sobbing in the Oval Office, leaving us with one burning question: how could he have lost it all? Here for the first time is the tale told in his own words: the terrifying supernatural secret he stumbled upon as a young man, and the truth behind the Cold War. What if the man we call our worst president was, in truth, our greatest? Combining Lovecraftian suspense and international intrigue, Crooked is a masterwork of alternative history, equal parts mesmerizing character study and nail-biting Faustian thriller.
Little, Brown 2016-08-02 368 pages

Without Warning A J.B. Collins Novel

Joel C. Rosenberg
The exciting conclusion to the J. B. Collins series!Over 100,000 copies soldTop-ten appearances on national fiction bestseller lists: New York Times USA Today Publishers Weekly Washington Post "Guaranteed sleep loss for the reader of this can't-put-down novel." -- World magazine As he prepares to deliver the State of the Union address, the president of the United States is convinced the Islamic State is on the run, about to be crushed by American forces once and for all. But New York Times foreign correspondent J. B. Collins tells the president he's dead wrong. With the Middle East on fire, the Israeli prime minister dead, and Amman in ruins, Collins fears a catastrophic attack inside the American homeland is imminent . He argues that only an all-out manhunt to capture or kill Abu Kahlif--the leader of ISIS--can stop the attack and save American lives. But will the president listen and take decisive action before it's too late?
Tyndale House Publishers 2017-10-03 592 pages

The Profession A Thriller

Steven Pressfield
Master storyteller and bestselling author Steven Pressfield returns with a stunning, chillingly plausible near-future thriller about the rise of a privately financed and global military industrial complex. The year is 2032. The third Iran-Iraq war is over; the 11/11 dirty bomb attack on the port of Long Beach, California is receding into memory; Saudi Arabia has recently quelled a coup; Russians and Turks are clashing in the Caspian Basin; Iranian armored units, supported by the satellite and drone power of their Chinese allies, have emerged from their enclaves in Tehran and are sweeping south attempting to recapture the resource rich territory stolen from them, in their view, by Lukoil, BP, and ExxonMobil and their privately-funded armies. Everywhere, military force is for hire. Oil companies, multi-national corporations and banks employ powerful, cutting-edge mercenary armies to control global chaos and protect their riches. Even nation states enlist mercenary forces to suppress internal insurrections, hunt terrorists, and do the black bag jobs necessary to maintain the new New World Order. Force Insertion is the world's merc monopoly. Its leader is the disgraced former United States Marine General James Salter, stripped of his command by the president for nuclear saber-rattling with the Chinese and banished to the Far East. A grandmaster military and political strategist, Salter plans to take vengeance on those responsible for his exile and then come home...as Commander in Chief. The only man who can stop him is Gilbert "Gent" Gentilhomme, Salter's most loyal foot soldier, who launches a desperate mission to take out his mentor and save the United States from self destruction. Infused with a staggering breadth of research in military tactics and steeped in the timeless themes of the honor and valor of men at war that distinguish all of Pressfield’s fiction, The Profession is that rare novel that informs and challenges the reader almost as much as it entertains.
Crown 2012-05-15 336 pages

The Inner Circle

Brad Meltzer
There are stories no one knows. Hidden stories. I love those stories. And since I work in the National Archives, I find those stories for a living. Beecher White, a young archivist, spends his days working with the most important documents of the U.S. government. He has always been the keeper of other people's stories, never a part of the story himself... Until now. When Clementine Kaye, Beecher's first childhood crush, shows up at the National Archives asking for his help tracking down her long-lost father, Beecher tries to impress her by showing her the secret vault where the President of the United States privately reviews classified documents. After they accidentally happen upon a priceless artifact - a 200 hundred-year-old dictionary that once belonged to George Washington, hidden underneath a desk chair, Beecher and Clementine find themselves suddenly entangled in a web of deception, conspiracy, and murder. Soon a man is dead, and Beecher is on the run as he races to learn the truth behind this mysterious national treasure. His search will lead him to discover a coded and ingenious puzzle that conceals a disturbing secret from the founding of our nation. It is a secret, Beecher soon discovers, that some believe is worth killing for. Gripping, fast-paced, and filled with the fascinating historical detail for which he is famous, THE INNER CIRCLE is a thrilling novel that showcases a brilliant author writing at the height of his craft.
Grand Central Publishing 2015-04-28 640 pages

The Fifth Assassin

Brad Meltzer
From John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald, there have been more than two dozen assassination attempts on the President of the United States. Four have been successful. But now, Beecher White--the hero of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Inner Circle--discovers a killer in Washington, D.C., who's meticulously re-creating the crimes of these four men. Historians have branded them as four lone wolves. But what if they were wrong? Beecher is about to discover the truth: that during the course of a hundred years, all four assassins were secretly working together. What was their purpose? For whom do they really work? And why are they planning to kill the current President? Beecher's about to find out. And most terrifyingly, he's about to come face-to-face with the fifth assassin.
Grand Central Publishing 2015-05-26 608 pages

C Street The Fundamentalist Threat to Democracy

Jeff Sharlet
'A gripping political thriller, a masterpiece of investigative journalism' Peter Manseau, author of Rag and Bone The secretive Christian fundamentalist group known as 'The Family' is leading a new crusade for 'God-led government'.Jeff Sharlet, author The Family (more than 100,000 copies sold worldwide), is the only journalist to have reported from insidethe organisation. The Family garnered intense media coverage in 2009 when theirtownhouse on Washington's C Street was central to three Republican sex scandals. Now Sharlet uncovers the convert efforts of C Street to transform the very fabric of Western democracy, with the Family, steeped in the influence and corruption usually associated with the notorious lobbing industry, fueling political fundamentalism from within government. When Barack Obama took office, headlines declared the age of culture wars over. In C Street, Sharlet show why these conflicts endure and why they matter now-from Uganda, where culture warriors are determined to eradicate homosexuality, to the battle for the soul of America's armed forces. Reporting with exclusive sources and explosives documents, Sharlet reveals the terrifying new front-lines of fundamentalism. PRAISE FOR THE FAMILY 'This expose of the hidden face of Christian fundamentalism is authoritative and alarming.' The Age 'One of the most compelling and brilliantly researched exposes you'll ever read.' Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Smile or Die
University of Queensland Press 2010 344 pages

After the Madness

Sol Wachtler
Driving down the Long Island Expressway in November of 1992, Sol Wachtler was New York's Chief Judge and heir apparent to the New York Governorship. Suddenly, three van loads of FBI agents swerved in front of him--bringing his car and his legal career to a halt. Wachtler's subsequent arrest, conviction and incarceration for harassing his longtime lover precipitated a media feeding frenzy, revealing to the world his struggles with romantic obsession, manic-depression and drug abuse. In this, his prison diary, Wachtler reveals the stark reality behind his vertiginous fall from the heights of the legal establishment to the underbelly of the criminal justice system. Sentenced to a medium security prison in Butner, North Carolina, Wachtler is stabbed by an unseen assailant, berated by prison guards, and repeatedly placed in solitary confinement with no explanation. Moreover, as a prisoner he confronts first hand the inequities of a system that his judicial rulings helped to construct and befriends the type of people he once sentenced to prison. With unflinching honesty, Wachtler draws upon his unique experience of living life on both sides of the bench to paint a chilling portrait of prison life interwoven with a no-holds-barred analysis of the shortcomings of the American legal justice system.
Open Road Integrated Media, Incorporated 2003-07 320 pages

The Blade Between A Novel

Sam J. Miller
A Library Journal Horror Best Seller From Nebula Award winner Sam J. Miller comes a frightening and uncanny ghost story about a rapidly changing city in upstate New York and the mysterious forces that threaten it. Ronan Szepessy promised himself he'd never return to Hudson. The sleepy upstate town was no place for a restless gay photographer. But his father is ill and New York City's distractions have become too much for him. He hopes that a quick visit will help him recharge. Ronan reconnects with two friends from high school: Dom, his first love, and Dom's wife, Attalah. The three former misfits mourn what their town has become--overrun by gentrifiers and corporate interests. With friends and neighbors getting evicted en masse and a mayoral election coming up, Ronan and Attalah craft a plan to rattle the newcomers and expose their true motives. But in doing so, they unleash something far more mysterious and uncontainable. Hudson has a rich, proud history and, it turns out, the real-state developers aren't the only forces threatening its well-being: the spirits undergirding this once-thriving industrial town are enraged. Ronan's hijinks have overlapped with a bubbling up of hate and violence among friends and neighbors, and everything is spiraling out of control. Ronan must summon the very best of himself to shed his own demons and save the city he once loathed.
HarperCollins Publishers 2022-02 384 pages

Bravo

Greg Rucka
The thrilling follow-up to Alpha continues the Jad Bell series from New York Times bestselling author Greg Rucka. Still recovering from traumas both physical and emotional, Jad Bell is tasked with bringing in the Uzbek, principal organizer of the terrorist attack that nearly cost Bell his ex-wife and daughter. But the Uzbek's just the beginning: his employer, the Architect, has already set in motion another, even more devastating attack. At the center of it all are two women under deep cover. One, as beautiful as she is deadly, has just been dispatched on American soil to execute the Architect's deadly plans. The other is an American just emerging from a complex web of lies, whose intel may be the only hope Bell has to stop the assault before it begins. But after years of pretending to be somebody else, can she be trusted?
Little, Brown 2015-02-24 368 pages

Under the Eye of God

Jerome Charyn
After decades of madness in the Bronx, Isaac Sidel visits the craziest state in the country Isaac Sidel is too popular to be America's vice president. Once the New York Police Department commissioner, he became the most beloved mayor in the city's history--famous for his refusal to surrender his Glock, and for his habit of disappearing for months at a time to fight crime at street level. So when baseball czar J. Michael Storm asks Sidel to join him on the election's Democratic ticket, the two wild men romp to an unprecedented landslide. But as the president-elect's mandate goes off the rails--threatened by corruption, sex, and God knows what else--he tires of being overshadowed by Sidel, and dispatches him to a place from which tough politicians seldom return: Texas. In the Lone Star state, Sidel confronts rogue astrologers, accusations of pedophilia, and a dimwitted assassin who doesn't know when to take an easy shot. If this Bronx bomber doesn't watch his step, he risks making vice-presidential history by getting killed on the job.
MysteriousPress.com 2014-01-21 222 pages

The Adventurers

Harold Robbins
From the author of The New York Times #1 best-selling novel The Carpetbaggers comes a tale of violence, sex, betrayal, revenge and intrigue. The Adventurers is a story of revolution and danger in the sultry jungles of South America.As a young boy, Diogenes Alejandro Xenos (¿Dax¿) witnesses the brutal rape and murder of his mother and sister by government troops¿experiencing the drama of revolution, loss, and tragedy firsthand. He is sent to Europe by the victorious rebel leader to rebuild his country¿s diplomatic and financial status post-revolution, and is immediately thrown into the elite environment of Europe¿s jet set society of international bankers and diplomats.Outwardly, Dax lives a life of privilege as one of the continent¿s most sought-after, hedonistic playboys¿wanted by men and women alike, but for very different reasons. Inside, however, he channels his fear, anger and hatred for the new regime, which he realizes is as corrupt as the old, into a desire to disrupt the status quo. Once a favorite of the general-turned-dictator, Dax quickly becomes an outlaw in his own country, living on the fringes of society as a rebel hell-bent on a new revolution.This epic tale of escape from the horrors of a third world regime is one of Harold Robbins' most ambitious novels ever, combining his trademark sensuality with political intrigue, a globe-spanning variety of exotic locales, and themes that never seem to change¿political intrigue, greed, power, money, violence, sex and betrayal.With Dax Xenos, Robbins thrills and excites us with one of his most memorable and intriguing characters¿a flawed and complicated hero.The Adventurers was one of Robbins¿ most successful novels, spending 41 weeks on The New York Times best sellers list. Today, this novel easily proves that Robbins¿ compelling prose still has the power to surprise, titillate, and move readers.
Oghma Creative Media 2018-05-15 860 pages

Scandalmonger

William Safire
The bestselling historical novel that exposes the less than honorable side of our Founding Fathers by the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. In this gripping and timely work, William Safire unveils the story behind the nation's first great political scandals. James Thomson Callender, the "scandalmonger" of the title, is an ambitious gossip-peddling editor secretly hired by Thomas Jefferson as a political weapon. After carefully damaging Alexander Hamilton's reputation, thereby paving the way for Jefferson's success, Callender is shunned by the very politicians on whose behalf he was jailed for sedition. Broke and betrayed, Callender seeks revenge by exposing an illicit affair between Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemmings, an accusation that ultimately cost Callender his career and would not be authenticated for two centuries. By using actual letters, records, and notes to re-create dialogue and events, Scandalmonger embodies historical fiction at its best, politics at its most intriguing, and our Founding Fathers at their most notorious. For those who think that Washington sex scandals and lurid journalism are recent developments, this novel will be a revelation, for Safire shows how media intrusiveness into private lives-and politicians' cool manipulation of the press-are practices as old as the Constitution.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2001 496 pages