Murder in the White House

This is a great mix of personal and political intrigue where the Secretary of State, friend to the President, gets murdered. The author visibly understands the workings of Washington and I liked the multi-layered approach.
The book is written in a simple but effective way, and I was more than half-way through when I realised that it was written in 1980! Apart from a few details, it could have been written yesterday. A timeless classic!

It was fun reading a novel interspersed with so much DC resident & neighborhood references, especially since they were used correctly. It's a DC mentality which picks out minutiae and lose sight of the novel as a whole. It's even worse for movies & TV shows when the background is moving opposite of their destination!

When the Secretary of State is murdered in the West Wing of the White House, the President appoints Ron Fairbanks, special counsel to the president, to investigate. This was an interesting mystery, full of the political intrigue of Washington, DC. The book was published in 1980, and there were times that something did strike me as a bit dated, but the story itself holds up. Ron is an interesting main protagonist and Truman has real experience with the ins and outs of the Washington political scene (at least during the time when she wrote the book). It looks like the next book in the series has a different main investigator so I am interested to see if there is any link in the series beyond Washington politics.

I read this many years ago. I didn't think it was great then and I don't think it's great now, but it's certainly readable and Truman is competent.

The basic plot: the secretary of state is found murdered in the White House. An investigation by the President's Special Counsel, Ron Fairbanks, a bright young man, reveals some darkness in the Secretary of State's handling of his job. There are different reasons he might have been murdered, but there is a limiting factor: only a small number of persons had access to that floor of the White House at the time he was killed.

Ron investigates so thoroughly that he is himself threatened. But why? By whom? He has his suspicions but proof is harder to find.

I found Truman's use of ellipses a bit show more profligate. Every chapter has several paragraphs ending in three dots. As if she couldn't express certainty, but rather a kind of wandering mind. I think she should have just ended those sentences with a period and been done with it.

I also felt that the story was short on nail-biting drama. Much of the story was telegraphed so there were few surprises, and times of uncertainty were short-lived. I think real life tends to be this way so I didn't mind it too much but others may.

I wondered if an investigation of this type could have been handled in this way: by appointment of an investigator who was a lawyer, not a detective. Not sure how that works, although many of us have lived through years of special prosecutors who interviewed those involved, so maybe it does work that way. show less

I checked this book out of the library when I saw the series was optioned for a tv series. I didn’t realize it was first published 40 years ago until I was reading it and the characters are out to dinner at a Japanese restaurant and definitions for sushi and sake are given… probably not needed in more current writing.

The book wasn’t riveting but short and entertaining enough. I was pretty sure I knew who the killer was early on but guessed the wrong motive. Quite the Lifetime movie drama at the end.

I love Ms Truman's Capitol Crimes series. Who knows Washington and its iconic locations better than she? The settings of her novels are so strong and believable that I am free to concentrate on the mystery, while Washington surrounds me with nary a misstep.

This particular entry in the series concerns the First Family (President, First Lady, and First Daughter) and the murder of the Secretary of State in one of the upstairs family rooms. A young and upcoming lawyer (Special Counsel to the President and occasional escort to the First Daughter) Ron Fairbanks, is placed in charge of the special investigation of this murder. The lifestyles, the corruption, the secrets that are uncovered lead Ron in ever-constricting circles around very show more powerful people. The President said, "Wherever it leads. No one is above suspicion," but Ron fears he has been set up as a scapegoat and a disposable element. Even if he finds the culprit, his career may be over, and the growing affection between Ron and the President's daughter Lynne Webster may have no future at all.

Enjoyable. Interesting twists along the way. Recommended. show less

I checked this book out of the library when I saw the series was optioned for a tv series. I didn’t realize it was first published 40+ years ago until I was reading it and the characters are out to dinner at a Japanese restaurant and definitions for sushi and sake are given… probably not needed in more current writing.

The book wasn’t riveting but short and entertaining enough. I was pretty sure I knew who the killer was early on but guessed the wrong motive. Quite the Lifetime movie drama at the end.