City of Shadows

Three fast-paced plotlines converge in Dalton's complex, survival-of-the-fittest debut political thriller, set in a seething Washington, D.C., on the eve of Watergate. In the first, rookie cop John Quinn, a softie when it comes to the ladies, gets himself in trouble early on by mixing it up with local mobster Joe Nezneck, who murders a young call girl. But it's another woman--Lorri Larson, part-time stewardess and sometime party girl for an escort agency--who leads him into serious jeopardy. When the FBI links Lorri's agency to the Nixon re-election committee, Quinn scouts the Watergate ""date"" apartment to remove damaging photos and runs into some D.C. cops on a break-in tip: together, they stumble onto the plumbers' break-in at Democratic Committee HQ. Story two follows Vietnam vet Nathan Holloway, a marine working as a Pentagon mole under Henry Kissinger. When Holloway surprises a CIA exec with ties to the Mafia breaking into Howard Hunt's White House safe, he becomes a CIA target. Meanwhile, two Senate staffers look into the presidential pardon of Jimmy Hoffa and mafioso friends of Nezneck, winding up on yet another hit list. Dalton smoothly merges these three story lines as the protagonists join forces against heavyweight adversaries, trying to stay alive and gain a measure of justice. The terrifying tale he weaves of corruption, abuse of power and secret deals made and broken in the political shadows is geared toward political thriller junkies who can keep a multitude of characters straight and will enjoy weeding out the facts from the fiction. (Nov.)