JERICHO'S FALL
Stephen L. Carter
Knopf
Thriller
ISBN: 9780307272621
JERICHO’S FALL by Stephen L. Carter is one of those rare novels best described as a page-turner that, in its telling, demands to be read and savored slowly. Carter writes books that are most easily classified as political thrillers yet cross fiction genres with brilliant impunity. His latest, if one insists on a classification, is more concerned with espionage --- that most political of activities --- but as with his other, stellar work, Carter incorporates elements normally associated with other genres, all the while telling its story in a voice that is irresistible from first page to last.
As the novel begins, three women with hidden agendas and visible cross-animosities have gathered at a magnificent house in the Colorado mountains as Jericho Ainsley lives his final weeks. Jericho is most famously the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency; his guests are Rebecca DeForde and his two daughters, Audrey and Pamela. Audrey, an Episcopal nun, has an interesting background that is slowly revealed. Pamela is involved in filmmaking, a driven individual who makes no secret of her animosity and hostility toward Beck. It is Beck who is the most significant figure of the three of them.
Jericho and Beck had been involved in a passionate and ultimately destructive affair some 13 years prior when Beck was 19 and a sophomore at Princeton. After leaving the CIA, Jericho had joined a private equity firm and then retired to take a position on the Princeton faculty. His presence as a professor brought the nattering naybobs out in droves, none more so than a bile-spitting student demonstrator named Lewiston Clark. The affair and resultant scandal when Jericho left his wife for Beck brought both parties down. Forgotten but not gone, Jericho retreated to Stone Heights, the mountain retreat in Colorado he purchased with the intent that he and Beck would live out their days. Beck left school, entered into a short but disastrous marriage, and has been supporting her young but precocious daughter by working for a department store chain in a job that Jericho dismissively describes as a “glorified cashier.”
As JERICHO’S FALL begins, Jericho, suffering from terminal cancer, has requested that Beck come to him, ostensibly so that they might bid each other farewell. And come she does --- even as a mysterious black helicopter buzzes Stone Heights, even as representatives of the chattering classes seek interviews, even as Clark, now a journalist, wants deceptive access to Jericho, ostensibly to write the great man’s biography with bad intent but with an even darker purpose. The only person absent from the tableau is Sean, Jericho’s estranged son, with whom Beck has established an odd if real friendship. Of greatest concern, however, are the people from Jericho’s past life who hover just within the shadows. Jericho, either paranoid or supremely aware, feared nothing more or less than assassination. He had taken steps to ensure that, in the event of his demise, the secrets that Jericho had acquired during his intelligence career would be disclosed to the light of day.
As the number of his remaining days dwindles, forces gather to acquire those secrets, to hide some, and to take others as their own. Jericho, who is described as having some time ago slipped from unbalanced to unhinged, remains intellectually sharp, suspicious of all but trusting only Beck, speaking in riddles and making enigmatic requests for her assistance while attempting to lure her into his deathbed for a final auld lang syne. What is undeniable, however, is that all is not well. A mutilated dog is dumped in the driveway; a trusted family friend is found dead under suspicious circumstances; and one of Jericho’s former colleagues issues a warning to Beck about helping him with anything remotely connected to what is either his will, a tell-all autobiography, or something else. Beck finds herself drawn into the mystery of what is occurring around her. Part of the answer lies in Bethel, a small town near Stone Heights. Another lies in the past. Most, however, lies within Jericho himself. And as malignant forces dip and swirl around Beck and Jericho’s daughters, the old cold warrior is girding his loins for one final war.
JERICHO’S FALL is one of those novels that people linger over and re-read simply for the experience and pleasure of analyzing how the author worked his magic. Carter strikes a perfect balance here amongst the mystery, the suspense, the political, and, yes, the romance --- a story of two former lovers, each of whom had their lives irrevocably changed by their attraction with the other. It frames, among many other things, a subtle question: What happens when two people who were involved with each other and sacrificed all for the relationship only to separate suddenly encounter each other once again, with unresolved matters of the heart still between them?
Carter raises that issue, and many others, from the personal to the global, in a prose tapestry that is wonderful and unforgettable. For example, he presents a quote from Jericho that appears about one-third of the way through the book. It compares people to countries and contrasts friends with enemies, and contains more immutable truth in a few sentences than one normally encounters in entire volumes. Carter is possessed of a sharp and subtle wit that, were it a sword cane, could separate head from shoulders with a whisper. And JERICHO’S FALL is the sharpest manifestation of his talent to date.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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