Such an entertaining review written by Carl Hiaasen. One I've enjoyed reading again and again.
THE CAMPAIGN By Marilyn Tucker Quayle and Nancy Tucker Northcott. 478 pp. New York: HarperCollins Publishers/ Zondervan Publishing House. $22.
Robert Hawkins Grant, a popular Republican senator from Georgia, is coasting toward re-election when things suddenly start to go wrong. First he's framed for the murder of a pesky newspaper reporter. Then he's blamed for the pregnancy and subsequent suicide of a former staff member. And then (as if he didn't have enough headaches), a sleazy jailbird fingers him as a cocaine pusher. Bob Grant astutely connects these shocking headlines with his abrupt slide in the polls and sets out to learn who's trying to destroy him. The list of enemies is daunting. Burdened with the twin political handicaps of being black and conservative, Senator Grant is the natural target of both wild-eyed racists and wild-eyed liberals.
The authors, Marilyn Quayle and her sister Nancy Northcott, leave no doubt as to who is more dangerous. Among those gunning for the stalwart Grant is a venal, powerful Washington newspaper editor named Peter Evans, who (lest readers doubt his left-leaning bias) dates only young, beautiful women and also owns two Picassos. And don't rule out the power-crazed Attorney General, Jonathan Hunter, who has despised Grant ever since the Senator embarrassed the Administration by singlehandedly rescuing post-Castro Cuba from more dirty rotten Communists. Last but not least is the President himself, a typically immoral and philandering Democrat who fears the squeaky-clean Bob Grant as a future challenger. Each day brings a bleak new bombshell for the stoic candidate. Even Grant's son Bailey is unfairly dragged into the scandal, and at one point is seen with "a thunderous scowl denting his forehead." We feel the young man's pain.
Luckily, Grant finds an ally in Jimmy Jenks, a crusty, white cracker sheriff who declares that the whole case "stinks worse'n skunk roadkill." Which, unfortunately, is also true of the writing. Whenever a quickening pace threatens to distract from the dreadful silliness of the plot, readers are halted by quicksand like this: "A vague uneasiness slowly seeped in to fill that void of unaccustomed ignorance."
And seep it does. Even the most rabid thriller fans will find it tough to buy this conspiracy, which involves spies, bimbos, hackers, drug traffickers, the North Koreans and a pair of evil lesbian feminists. Honestly.
Only days before the election, as jackbooted Feds close in, the Senator is forced to become a fugitive. Well, you can imagine what that does to his already hectic campaign schedule. All remaining hope for a serious television debate is dashed when the President issues a shoot-to-kill order. Trailing badly in the polls and now stalked by Government sharpshooters, the Senator knows his only chance of victory is to get on CNN and tell his story. Those who remember Bob Grant from "Embrace the Serpent," the authors' previous novel, won't be surprised by his heroic perseverance, and once again will need plenty of their own.
Although Mrs. Quayle's husband was once Vice President, don't expect juicy tidbits about White House life. While there's a lovely description of the wingback chairs in the Oval Office and a poignant lament on the blasphemous relocation of Ronald Reagan's portrait, some readers will want more.
Clearly, "The Campaign" isn't meant simply as a behind-the-scenes peek at Washington but also as a lesson on its many perils. Listen to the authors on the ruthless Attorney General: "Amassing power and more power was the nectar that nourished the soul. Few men recognized its necessity. Fewer still had inhaled the intoxication of its fragrance. He alone sipped it at will." Thanks, but we'll take ours with caffeine.
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