Purple Dots
   Jim Lehrer
  1998 Random House NY USA
   ISBN: 0679452370


In Washington, D.C., Charlie & Marty are on opposite sides of a power play. Charlie's a retired operative when a friend & erstwhile partner gets nominated for director of the CIA. Marty is a young, idealistic intelligence aide for the senator heading the nomination committee. Trouble starts when favor swapping confuses water rights with qualifications & purple dots gets you unheard of privileges.

I didn't know Jim Lehrer wrote novels - amusing, articulate & suspenseful political thrillers. Both Charlie & Marty are likable rogues - one because he's seen it all & the other because he can't believe all he's seeing. One has an enduring marriage, likes his creature comforts & has a cadre of loyal retired spooks still active in the old bomb-the-opposition game.

Marty is so green & indignant, filled with unripe dreams of unbesmirched senatorship even as he goes about the business of digging up dirt. He has improbable daydreams of an unconsummated ideal marriage, replete with perfect offspring & antique home. He is also a quick study in the cloak-&-dagger game.

These two clash; unsavory skeletons are revealed; unlikely partnerships made & glimpses given, often ironic, as only someone who's seen the Ants at Work on The Hill.

A lively read. A rather telling expose of how a nomination can be torpedoed before it gets out of the bay & the bargaining that goes on behind the scenes.

Ah, Washington at its sycophantic best! Lovely stuff.

More by Jim Lehrer: Viva Max!; We Were Dreamers; Kick the Can; Crown Oklahoma; The Sooner Spy; Lost and Found; Short List; A Bus of My Own; Blue Hearts; Fine Lines; The Last Debate & White Widow
(06/06/99)

Rebecca