β Scribed by Frey, Stephen W.
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
A hard-working financier on Wall Street is informed that his estranged father has died and left him the key to a safety-deposit box. What he finds inside is a videotape of the JFK assassination--filmed from the other side of Dealey Plaza. Before he can get over the initial shock of his discovery, the financier finds his life is in danger from a conspiracy dating back over thirty years...and a secret that was never meant to be told.
The central feature of this Stephen Frey novel is a fascination with the Kennedy assassination and the answer that conspiracy junkies have long believed: that the United States government has been involved in covering up the existence of a second gunman ever since that fateful day in November 1963. In Frey's world, while the government was not responsible for the assassination, the belief that evidence of a conspiracy would have pushed the Cold War into a hot one "forced" those at the top to keep that evidence to themselves.
The novel's prologue sets the stage as a struggling actress goes to Dallas and films the motorcade on a whim. Before she has even digested that she has captured one of the most memorable moments in American history, her camera is ripped from her grasp by a mysterious man. The chapter that follows jumps to 1998 as New York bonds trader Cole Egan receives a phone call telling him of his estranged father's death and of a package that awaits him in a safety deposit box. The package, of course, contains a video of the film stolen from the actress, and Cole realizes he is sitting on a gold mine: from the other side of Dealey Plaza, the tape shows the firing rifle denied by the Warren Commission.
Of course, the U.S. government has not gone to all the trouble of keeping such information secure for over 30 years just to let some upstart indebted bonds trader make a fortune selling the truth to the highest bidder. The novel takes flight as the dashing and resourceful Cole begins his quest to receive the benefits of his legacy while competently evading the knives, guns, and explosives of a super secret government agency. Not only is the government (portrayed as a surprisingly well-organized structure) intent on controlling the truth, so are those who might be accused of the assassination. Although Cole is initially confident about who the bad guys are, the suspense builds as the line separating allies and enemies dissolves, and our hero finds out quite a lot about himself, his father, and the lengths to which the government will go to keep its secrets. --Kimberly Crouch
Cole Egan is watching a hitherto unknown tape of the JFK assassination, shot from the other side of Dealey Plaza. " 'God,' Cole murmured. It was shocking footage, so shocking he almost forgot the seven-million-dollar hit his portfolio had taken in the aftermath of the Fed announcement this afternoon." "Almost" is the key word here: the quote tells you almost everything you need to know about Frey's latest financial thriller (after The Inner Sanctum, 1997), a strange, lumpy, often ludicrous but finally addictive story that mixes historic tragedy with the personal problems of a would-be Master of the Universe. At 29, Cole is having a bad year as a securities trader for a powerful Wall Street brokerage firm. His bonus is in dire danger; the mortgage on his condo is killing him; he hears rumors that the gorgeous model he grew up with (and now wants to date) is a lesbian; and he owes some connected loan sharks a bundle. When a mysterious voice directs him to a safe deposit box and the JFK tape (a legacy from his reclusive secret agent father), Cole sees it as his chance to clean up his debts and finally find out something about his parents. What he gets instead is a tangled link to the White House, a cabal of hired killers determined to keep the tape secret and brisk action scenes on the waters of Minnesota. What we get is a compulsive, if essentially unbelievable, summer read.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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