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The players who live hard and fast in today's vitriolic political environment are the driving force in Stuart Woods's newest thriller, CAPITAL CRIMES. He brings back Will Lee, the former senator from Georgia, who is now President of the United States. His wife, Katherine Rule Lee, wields power as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. She was "appointed to that post by her husband, after an act of Congress had allowed him to do so." Together, with the help of Robert Kinney, the FBI's deputy director for Criminal Investigations and a law enforcement crew from different agencies, they must stop a killer who is assassinating conservative politicians.
The timely story reflects so much of what is happening in America --- the divided factions of ideologues whose issues arise from their personal philosophies; the narrow-minded politicos who believe their doctrines are the only ones that count; the power hungry officials who lose sight of their original commitment to their constituents; the anger among the disenfranchised electorate; and the compelling themes of good vs. bad, them against us, whose rights are primary, and ultimately, does fiction reflect the truth about the world as we think we know it and how it is run. The lines between "Liberals" and "Conservatives" merge because anyone with an agenda and gun just needs to point and shoot.
CAPITAL CRIMES is a fast read, but that doesn't diminish its impact. When Senator Freddie Wallace is murdered at his weekend cabin, the possibility that secrets he had kept for years might be leaked sends a wave of fear to everyone from the Oval Office to almost all the corridors of power across the country: "What has a lot of people in Washington worried is that Senator Wallace was rumored to have kept extensive files on various people in government and that the information in those files might find its way into the media. According to rumor, only J. Edgar Hoover had more dirt on more important people."
The first leak was about Elizabeth Johnson, who had been the Senator's lover for over twenty years. When she found him she knew what to do. She "had gone through the house carefully, packing anything that might be linked to her into two large suitcases. She and Freddie had talked about this more than once, and his instructions had been explicit." He told her to take everything that belonged to her, get out of the house and call the sheriff. And that is exactly what she did.
When she got home she "opened a desk drawer in the den … and took out a key. She went down the stairs to the basement and to a pile of boxes in a corner. She moved one, exposing a small filing cabinet, the kind that holds index cards … she switched on a light, illuminating a row of precisely filed cards, all of them labeled with neatly printed names of some of the best-known, most powerful people in the country." At first she had wanted to look at them "but instead, she stared at the cards as if they were a poisonous reptile." She put the cards away and decided she "would wait awhile, until the furor over Freddie's death died down, then she would burn all those index cards in her fireplace."
But when Kinney found her, he told her he knew about the senator's cache of files and said, "The senator had a lot of enemies … if we interview every one of them, it will take months, maybe years to develop suspects. He took a deep breath and told the lie. 'Now, I think it's very possible that, somewhere in those files is the name and the motive of the man who murdered the senator.'" Elizabeth understood immediately how important it was for Bob Kinney to take possession of the mean-spirited legacy she had kept hidden for so long.
Woods tells us a lot about Ted, the killer. We learn why he kills. We learn about his thought patterns. We get to know him through his heinous crimes. He was a master of disguises and great with his hands. He was able to make his own guns and rebuild his car so that the carapace hid the engine and other high-tech adjustments he made. We learn that he had been planning this killing spree for years and that he is a very patient man.
But someone knows his identity, where he can be found and how to catch him. Not surprisingly, that someone wants to speak to CIA Director Katherine Rule Lee. He wants a dialogue with her but only on his terms. She is reluctant to tell anyone that he's been in touch with her. Why has she not told even the President about her contact with this mystery man? Is she hiding something behind her post as First Lady, or does her silence have something to do with her assignment with the CIA?
Stuart Woods is an accomplished writer who has produced 29 books, all of them gems. He is known for his well-crafted plots and intriguing characters. He is an accessible writer with an exceptional ability to take a headline and reweave it into a suspenseful novel. That uncanny talent makes CAPITAL CRIMES another jewel in his crown.
--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum
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