The Washington Lawyer

Author:   Allan Topol
Publisher:   Select Books Inc
ISBN:  

9781590792667


Pages:   288
Publication Date:   17 March 2015
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   In stock   Availability explained
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The Washington Lawyer


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Overview

In the high-stakes world of Washington politics, hotshot lawyer Andrew Martin is being put to the test. When long-time friend Senator William Jasper calls, it’s with explosive news—and a favor to ask. A sex tryst at Martin’s beach house in Anguilla has gone awry and former model Vanessa Boyd is dead. Just how far will Martin go to protect the chief justice nomination he’s built his entire career on?   Staggered by the sudden death of her twin sister, archeologist Allison Boyd drops everything to fly home to her grieving family. But when she realizes that the pieces to the puzzle simply won’t add up, she is determined to discover the truth behind her sister’s death. Launching an investigation that will unveil a treasonous plot backed by foreign interests and enabled by blackmail, Allison finds herself up against something bigger and more lethal than she could have ever imagined. With Martin’s star associate Paul Maltoni at her side, she uncovers a complex, interconnected web of lies that will expose some of Washington’s most influential power players. And she will not rest until she sees them ruined. From the best-selling author of the Craig Page series, The Washington Lawyer is a penetrating glimpse into Capitol Hill’s seedy underbelly. High-powered DC lawyer Allan Topol impresses again with this escapade into the intricate underpinnings of Washington’s elite, drawing you into a net of questionable morals, deadly intrigues, and treachery from which there is no escape.

Full Product Details

Author:   Allan Topol
Publisher:   Select Books Inc
Imprint:   Select Books Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 15.40cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.367kg
ISBN:  

9781590792667


ISBN 10:   1590792661
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   17 March 2015
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In stock   Availability explained
We have confirmation that this item is in stock with the supplier. It will be ordered in for you and dispatched immediately.

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Reviews

Pity the poor political novelist. After all the real-world skullduggery of recent decades Nixon s Watergate, Clinton s intern how can fiction possibly compete with reality? Washington lawyer Allan Topol can t beat those odds, but in The Washington Lawyer he s given us a lively insider s portrait of political mischief featuring a senator who is a traitor and perhaps a murderer, a nominee for chief justice of the United States who is desperately trying to cover up his own misdeeds and a gang of Chinese spies eager to bribe or, if necessary, kill our politicians to obtain the Pentagon s innermost secrets. Political fiction wasn t always this dark. Allen Drury, whose Advise and Consent (1959) remains one of the most admired novels of Washington politics, respected the Senate (which he had covered as a reporter) and thought our government was swell, at least if those pesky better red than dead liberals who populate his books could be beaten back. But after Vietnam and Watergate, many novelists grew cynical or realistic, some would say. James Grady s Six Days of the Condor (1974) featured rogue CIA agents who imported drugs and killed people who threatened them; Edward Stewart s They ve Shot the President s Daughter! (1973) imagined a Nixon-like president who had his daughter attacked to shore up his political support; my own The President s Mistress (1976) offered a presidential affair and coverup and moved certain journalistic elders to declare presidential infidelity unthinkable and the author of such a work clearly depraved; Michael Halberstam s more genial The Wanting of Levine (1978) proposed an as-yet-untested way out of the political wilderness: the first Jewish president. Topol, who has written 10other thrillers, stands with the pessimists in this outing. His story begins with 55-year-old Sen. Wesley Jasper relaxing on a beach in Anguilla with his gorgeous 34-year-old staff member and mistress. They drink wine, she puffs on a joint, they rejoice over their energetic sex life, and finally she demands his promise to divorce his wife and marry her. He reluctantly vows to do so after his reelection the next year. She sensibly doesn t believe him and warns that she secretly recorded a compromising conversation he had with a Chinese official and that unless he marries her, she ll ruin him. Although furious, the senator repeats his promise to make an honest woman of her, whereupon she goes for a moonlight swim. The scene shifts to an elegant Washington dinner party in a mansion on Foxhall Road. Host Andrew Martin is a Washington lawyer who is a front-runner to replace the retiring chief justice. His equally distinguished guests include the (female) secretary of state and the speaker of the House. The dinner recalls all those scenes in Drury s novels where everyone in sight is a towering mover and shaker. Trouble strikes. Martin takes a call, hoping it is the White House informing him of his nomination. Instead it s his old friend Sen. Jasper, calling from Anguilla to explain in near-hysterics that his girlfriend has drowned; he says he tried to save her and has her body on the beach. We learn that Martin owns the beach house the senator has borrowed for his love nest. The senator begs for help, lest he be ruined by scandal, and rejects the lawyer s advice to call the police and report an accidental drowning. Finally, impaired by several glasses of wine, Martin agrees to call an influential friend on the island who can fix things. As a result, Vanessa s body is moved elsewhere, and the police buy into a coverup. Enter the dead woman s more virtuous twin, brainy archaeologist Allison Boyd, who smells a rat and hastens to Washington to seek the truth. Soon she, Sen. Jasper and some bloodthirsty Chinese spies are all searching for the recording that would prove the dead woman s charge that the senator had accepted millions of dollars from the Chinese government in exchange for U.S. military secrets. (He claims to need the money for his reelection campaign, but why does he turn to the Chinese? Why not to the Koch brothers, generous fellows who ask nothing at all in return for their largesse?) The Washington Lawyer has its faults...but it moves along nicely. Topol deftly portrays office politics at a major law firm, as partners compete with one another and associates vie for the partners favor as they dream of making partner themselves. The novel flirts but never fully engages with an important issue: the way people atop the political heap can be corrupted by their hunger for ever more money and power. Ideally, the novel would focus not on Allison but on Martin, the would-be chief justice, who unwisely tries to help a friend and soon sinks deeper and deeper into a moral quagmire. His struggle deserves more serious treatment, but Topol s version is entertaining and at times has the ring of truth.--Patrick Anderson Washington Post


Pity the poor political novelist. After all the real-world skullduggery of recent decades 'Nixon's Watergate, Clinton's intern - how can fiction possibly compete with reality? Washington lawyer Allan Topol can't beat those odds, but in 'The Washington Lawyer' he's given us a lively insider's portrait of political mischief featuring a senator who is a traitor and perhaps a murderer, a nominee for chief justice of the United States who is desperately trying to cover up his own misdeeds and a gang of Chinese spies eager to bribe or, if necessary, kill our politicians to obtain the Pentagon's innermost secrets entertaining and at times has the ring of truth. - Patrick Anderson, Washington Post Topol (The Argentine Triangle) successfully portrays the panicked terrors of that Washington staple, the public figure trying to escape a scandal by lying his way out of trouble. Sen. Wesley Jasper has slipped off to the island of Anguilla for some mind-blowing sex with his beautiful mistress, Vanessa Boyd, who announces that he had better marry her or she'll go to the Washington Post with a CD she's recorded of him having a meeting with a Chinese secret agent. Wesley retaliates by drowning Vanessa. To cover up the crime, he enlists the help of his friend, Washington power lawyer Andrew Martin, who loaned Wesley his beach house for the tryst. Martin, who's in line for a seat on the Supreme Court, knows that if this gets out he'll be pulled from consideration, so he calls friends on the island for assistance. Meanwhile, Vanessa's plucky twin sister, Allison, has decided that the cover story of accidental death is a lie and throws herself into an investigation to find her sister's killer. The story follows familiar patterns, but Topol ties up all the loose ends, and all the principals, except poor Vanessa, get what's coming to them. Agent: Pam Ahearn, Ahearn Agency. (Mar.) Publisher's Weekly


Author Information

Allan Topol is the national bestselling author of nine novels of international intrigue, including Spy Dance. His novels have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and Hebrew. He is a graduate of Carnegie Institute of Technology, who majored in chemistry, abandoned science, and obtained a law degree from Yale University. A partner in a major Washington law firm, and an avid wine collector, he has traveled extensively, researching dramatic locations for his novels.

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