West End [signed] [first edition]

A NOVEL OF ENVY, REVENGE AND DIRTY MONEY THE TIME: The beginning of a golden age in American politics in the 1960s—when the constitutional promise of a nation of equal justice under the law appeared realistically attainable. THE PLACE: A fictional intersection of the Kennedy Brothers’ Camelot in the South, where the country’s enduring and painful struggle with racial integration was once again inflamed. THE STORY: The coming of age of one young man and the tragic undoing of another. David Arthur and Tate Weston—born on opposite sides of a great river that not only divides their Southern town but also sets them worlds apart for years to come— are picked up like leaves by swirling winds and blown in to the magic sphere of Jack Hickenlooper, publisher of a crusading Southern newspaper dedicated to equal justice under the law. THE BREW: Weston’s extraordinary charisma, confidence and resolute purpose to be elected president; Arthur’s uncertainty, naiveté, inferiority complex, and streak of exceptional luck; Hickenlooper’s grasp of the Kennedy power and their Machiavellian brand of end-justifies-the-means politics. And, oh yes, the doting mother, the perfect wife, the seductive receptionist, the crotch artist and the amazing Henri, and of course the soiling staples of politics—envy, revenge and dirty money.