The Campaign

A Novel

By Marilyn Tucker Quayle
and Nancy Tucker Northcott
Zondervan, $22.00

ISBN 0310202310

Murder & Mayhem in D.C.

Review by LaVonne Neff

What can you expect in a world where the U.S. Attorney General is obsessed with gaining ever more power for himself, where the chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee casts aspersions for political gain, where government intelligence has no form of accountability, and where one of the nation's most powerful newspaper editors has a personal vendetta against one of the few straight arrows left in government? Danger!

In the opening chapter of The Campaign, the new political thriller by former second lady Marilyn Tucker Quayle and her sister, Nancy Tucker Northcott, the stage is set for the mayhem to come. It is Sunday, October 25-nine days before the election that will determine whether Robert Hawkins Grant, U.S. Senator from Georgia, will return to the seat he has held for twelve years.

Russell P. Frederickson, the Washington Herald reporter covering Grant's reelection campaign, is found murdered in his motel room. According to the editor of the Herald, Frederickson had just uncovered something so damaging to Grant that the Republican Senator's career could be ruined. Suspicion begins to swirl around Grant.

Trouble is, murder just doesn't fit Grant's reputation. A church-going African American, Grant is known for both personal and public integrity. Formerly an admiral, then a college president, he is a conservative who supports military preparedness, strong action against drug smuggling, and-in a recent showdown with the administration-a democratic government in Cuba. It is well known that Grant and his wife, Rachel, an oncologist, have one of the few strong marriages inside the Beltway. He seems a shoo-in for the senatorial election until, with little more than a week to go, he suddenly comes under vicious assault.

Who is responsible for the campaign of lies, innuendoes, setups, planted evidence, and-as it turns out-one murder after another, all diabolically aimed at discrediting Grant and removing him from the political scene forever? Is the Democratic administration involved? Can the Washington Herald be implicated? Is there a foreign connection? Is racism a factor? Or is somebody extremely powerful acting on a personal grudge? And will Grant succeed in learning the truth and proclaiming it to the American public before his political career-or even his life-is extinguished?

The story unfolds in an atmosphere well-known to Quayle, and part of the pleasure of reading The Campaign lies in her descriptions of Washington places and procedures. Inevitably the question arises: In this tale of a power-crazed and sexually obsessed administration and a corrupt, biased media, are Quayle and Northcott describing actual persons and events? I suspect the dates culminating in election day Tuesday, November 3, were chosen to thwart literal-minded readers searching for clues to today's political scene. November 3 will fall on Tuesday in 1998, a congressional election year; but it appears that the then-President of the United States will be either a second-term Democrat or a first-term Republican, neither of which fits the President's profile in this book.

The Campaign is a carefully plotted, fast-paced page-turner, especially in its second half when Grant must defend not only his morals but his life. It is refreshing to read a political novel with absolutely no bad language and no steamy sex scenes.This is not so much political realism as a morality play in which pure goodness confronts utter evil. Would it give away too much to divulge that goodness eventually triumphs, or should I simply note that Quayle and Northcott are optimistic about the Republican party?