cover image Protect and Defend

Protect and Defend

Jack Valenti. Doubleday Books, $20 (299pp) ISBN 978-0-385-41735-8

Special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, Valenti (Speak Up with Confidence) here spins a political thriller that features an intriguing twist on domestic affairs, but is dated on the international front. In an unspecified time prior to the collapse of the U.S.S.R, hawkish President Donald Kells, a first-term Democrat running for reelection, is challenged in the primaries by his own recently resigned vice president, dashing, womanizing Bill Rawlins. Rawlins is aided by the leader of the KGB, who, without the knowledge of the Soviet president, activates a mole in a very high place in order to obstruct Kells's planned overtures to China. Intricate subplots involve a journalist targeted by the KGB, hired Bulgarian hitmen and cocaine planted on a loyal Kells aide. Clumsy KGB efforts to discredit Kells make even Rawlins's backers nervous. Though the novel is sprinkled with such real people as New York Times reporter Maureen Dowd and former Washington Post editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee, stock players and insipid dialogue seriously diminish its plausibility and suspense. (Oct.)