The Betrayal
A Novel
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
She worked for one of the most powerful men in government--and she trusted him completely. That was her mistake.
Praised as "a worthy rival of Scott Turow and John Grisham" (Chicago Tribune), Sabin Willett made a powerful debut with his legal thriller, The Deal. Now he's made the leap from the courthouse to the White House in an even more accomplished international thriller involving political corruption, multibillion-dollar deal making, kidnapping, and assassination. At the center of this fast-paced novel is a fascinating heroine: Louisa Shidler, a thirty-seven-year-old U.S. ambassador, mother, and convicted traitor. Betrayed by her husband, her government, and her powerful boss and mentor, she is abandoned by everyone except her daughter, Isabel. But when the girl is kidnapped, Louisa learns that there is no limit to betrayal's reach--and no limit to what one woman will do to survive it.
As the action moves relentlessly from Washington, D.C., to Geneva, Switzerland, from Dubai to Paris to Cody, Wyoming, it becomes evident that Louisa and her daughter are mere pawns in an international bribery scheme of unprecedented proportions. But when the pawns refuse to fall, the bigger pieces begin to topple.
Charged with political savvy, shrewd characterizations, and a tense, tightly constructed plot, The Betrayal is a thriller of the highest caliber that will further enhance Sabin Willett's growing reputation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Louisa Shidler, the mercurial heroine of Willett's absorbing if extravagant second thriller (after The Deal), has been betrayed by her philandering husband, but she accepts that. What she can't accept is finding out she's being used as a cover for her boss and mentor, Royall Stillwell, top gun at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and Republican candidate for vice president. So when Louisa discovers that Stillwell has deposited $50 million in a Swiss bank account in her name, she confronts him with his betrayal. Next thing she knows, she's being ordered to plead guilty to trumped-up federal charges of bribery and money laundering, or her abducted 12-year-old daughter Isabel will be raped and murdered. Louisa complies for a while, then bolts on a cross-country search for Isabel. Meanwhile, Louisa's arrest has mobilized her other mentor, Mac, crusty managing editor of the Washington Herald. Will Mac get the story before Louisa is nabbed by the shadowy Republican goon squad (or, perhaps worse, the FBI)? In Louisa and Mac, Willett creates attractive, full-bodied characters, noble and smart but deeply flawed. (The snobbish Louisa on meeting her lawyer: "A man with stones set into his wedding ring is going to be her advocate?"). Suspense builds in real time as Willett lovingly lingers over the legal niceties of Louisa's predicament, and the juicy dialogue reads like privileged information ("Louisa, do you know what democracy is? It's a client base, honey"). But the chapters written in Isabel's voice are intrusive, and the last third of the book spins out of control as Louisa, now a peroxide-blonde seductress, improbably takes up arms against her former GOP colleagues. 75,000 first printing; Random House audio.
