Potomac Jungle
A Novel by David Levy
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
Against the backdrop of an invisible escalating war for nuclear submarine superiority, one man holds the fate of the country in his hands.
President H. Stephen Thompson has nearly completed one term in office, aided by his son Harry and by Vice President Clifford Hawley, but the medical report from the Bethesda Naval Hospital has confirmed that the President's health is deteriorating. He suffers ominous memory losses that cause him to forget the names of important senators...and important matters of state.
Now, on the eve of the upcoming nominating convention, President Thompson is embroiled in a struggle for survival, a battle for power driven by the ambitious Vice President and a secret self-appointed committee.
As the Committee threatens to implement the 25th Amendment-the Constitution's provision for the succession of power-President Thompson is confronted with contradictory loyalties: his wife, Kathy, cannot suppress her feelings for Vice President Hawley but is determined to hold on to her position as First Lady; his son, Harry, works for the Vice President, but is keenly aware of his father's brilliance. The President's political allies and Cabinet members are dividing over the issue of the President's health, and of the necessity for proceeding with Red Dye Day, the secret technological breakthrough in the deadly game of underwater nuclear warfare with the Russians. Will the implementation of Red Dye Day be read by the Kremlin as a provocative act?
Power, passion, and ambition lurk in this suspenseful novel, where the jungle world of Washington politics is starkly revealed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An ailing U.S. president fights to keep his job in this tedious and implausible potboiler. Suffering from a bad heart and a faltering memory, President H. Stephen Thompson worries his top people, including v-p Clifford Hawley, in line to take over if the cabinet invokes an amendment to kick out Thompson. Hawley, however, has an active sex life that, years before, involved the woman who later married the widowed Thompson. The president, upon learning the secret from a helpful son, is aggrieved enough to drop Hawley from his party's ticket weeks before the convention. Meanwhile, the U.S. is about to win its arms negotiations with the Soviets by demonstrating a new way of pinpointing the location of submarines. But this potentially engaging subplot functions only to prove that Thompson is unable to make a decision. Ensuing events fail to build either suspense or sympathy for Levy's ( The Gods of Foxcroft ) two-dimensional characters. 40,000 first printing; $75,000 ad/promo.
