Reviews for The Hellfire Club

by Jake Tapper

Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

[DEBUT] Political junkies will thrill to this journey into the sordid months of 1954 when Sen. Joe McCarthy was steamrolling civil rights and Puerto Rican nationalists shot at congressmen on the floor of the House of Representatives. Young veteran Charlie Marder is named to a vacant House seat and starts out strong by lobbying against federal funds being given to a business that made shoddy war equipment. He awakens the demons of a modern Hellfire Club whose members seek to control the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower had warned against. While rubbing elbows with the Kennedys, Estes Kefauver, Roy Cohn, and other notables of the era, Charlie puts his own moral compass to severe stress. His wife, a zoologist doing fieldwork with the ponies of the Chesapeake Bay, adds a perky fillip to the plot as she stands by her man. Verdict Tapper (The Outpost), celebrated for his distinguished journalism career, has earned his spurs and white hat in this gunslinging saga through the underbelly of American government. Any District of Columbia fan will recognize his deep knowledge of congressional lore and local geography. Close to a 50-50 balance between fact and fiction, this debut will have readers calling for more fiction from Tapper's writerly pen. [See Prepub Alert, 11/21/17.]-Barbara Conaty, Falls Church, VA © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.


Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

The debut novel from CNN's chief Washington correspondent is set in the 1950s and features an assortment of real-life characters (JFK, Roy Cohn, Eisenhower, Joe McCarthy, and others). It tells the story of a rookie congressman, Charlie Marder, who took over after the death of his predecessor; as he learns the intricacies of Washington, D.C., Charlie also tries to find out what really happened to the deceased congressman and you had to see this coming winds up waist-deep in a conspiracy that could alter the political landscape of the U.S. This is a remarkably accomplished effort, especially for a first novel, very much like a Brad Meltzer thriller: energetic and mysterious, with plenty of suspense and a general feeling of evil lurking just barely behind the scenes. Tapper brings an expert's eye to the novel, too, layering it with the kind of detailed political knowledge that only someone with his first-hand experience could bring to the story. An auspicious debut.--Pitt, David Copyright 2018 Booklist


Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

In CNN anchor Tapper's first novel, a thriller set in the 1950s, freshman Congressman Charlie Marder is rudely awakened to the killing realities of Washington politics.Marder was a history professor at Columbia University, with a bestselling book to his credit, when he was appointed to a vacant congressional seat thanks to the string-pulling of his attorney father, a Republican power broker. Shortly after taking office, this World War II veteran causes a stir by daring to oppose appropriations to a big tire company whose defective gas masks led to the death of a fellow soldier in France. Caught up in cutthroat politics, Marder is soon drinking too much, bending to pressure, and making compromises that alarm and distance his pregnant wife, a zoologist. This is the heroic former army captain she married? As revealed by the long list of sources Tapper presents, he did his research. And his writing has a relaxed, flowing quality. But in surrounding his protagonist with heavy hitters, including Jack and Bob Kennedy ("No one who knows him calls him Bobby"), Lyndon Johnson, Joseph McCarthy, and Roy Cohn, Tapper falls into the old foreground/background trap: Nothing in Marder's story, as fraught with personal tension as it may be, can measure up to the stories of the people to whom he is in thrall. Ultimately, the human scenery of this You Are There for adults overwhelms the narrative. Scant attention is paid to the death of a cocktail waitress who apparently was picked up by Marder at a hotel bash and thrown from the car he was driving. He can't remember a thing. Worse, he is unable to imagine that everything may not be as it seems.Tapper's backstage portrayal of Capitol Hill circa 1954 is breezy and knowing but lacks the ingredients that would make it a successful political thriller. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.


Publishers Weekly
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CNN¿s chief Washington correspondent Tapper (The Outpost) makes his fiction debut with an intriguing if uneven political thriller set during the McCarthy era. In December 1953, a New York seat in the House of Representatives becomes vacant upon its occupant¿s mysterious death. Charlie Marder, a Columbia University academic and WWII veteran, is appointed to fill it after some backstage maneuvering from his well-connected father, a Manhattan power broker. Marder and his zoologist wife, Margaret, make the move to D.C., which is in the grips of Senator Joseph McCarthy¿s Red Scare, as well as the dual shining lights of the Kennedy brothers. It¿s soon clear that Marder is more pawn than player in a political chess game, even when he tries to stand up against money being funneled to a company that produced shoddy gas masks during the war. He makes friends with the veterans on Capitol Hill, joining them in liquor-soaked poker games. Tapper, whose intimate knowledge of Washington is undeniable, initially spends more time building up the Communist-hunting ambience of the 1950s than developing the plot, but once Marder closes in on a secret society and its tentacles within the government, the action rapidly picks up. Fans of well-researched historicals will be rewarded. Author tour. Agent: Robert Barnett, Williams & Connolly. (Apr.)