Charlie, a war hero and former college professor, doesn’t wonder whether there’s anything fishy about this situation.Ĭut to a big night at the theater, where everyone who’s anyone in Washington shows up. It begins with a thriller’s pro forma opening: Charlie Marder, newly minted congressman, wakes up drunk and muddy in Rock Creek Park with the following accouterments: tuxedo, dead cocktail waitress, wrecked Studebaker and high-powered lobbyist to help him escape the crime scene. The first part of the book is devoted to a parade of Washington cameos. As a nonfiction writer, he’s shown a wide range of interests, with subjects including a deadly battle in Afghanistan (“The Outpost”) and Jesse Ventura’s wrestler-to-governor transformation (“Body Slam”).Īs a novelist, he makes the rookie mistake of loading every interesting fact he could muster into a plot that can barely support the weight. He’s the guy who recently said, “Go home, 2018, you’re drunk,” delivering the savviest analysis of the year thus far. (“Has anyone actually gotten a look at the naval records of PT-109?” “It seems like too much of what’s in the news media is spoon-fed to journalists by various government factions with agendas.”) In Tapper’s view, it aligns all too well with the atmosphere today.Īs a newsman, Tapper can be tough and quick. The year is 1954, and the book is crammed with high-profile political figures of the McCarthy era. “That hairdo might be the worst cover-up in political history,” someone snipes in “The Hellfire Club,” a time-warping political thriller by the CNN anchor Jake Tapper.

To helfire and back