Corruption of Blood

Another "Who killed JFK" book? Tanenbaum--former chief of the New York City District Attorney's Homicide Bureau and deputy chief counsel to the late-'70s House Select Committee on Assassinations--is more qualified to speculate, or fictionalize, than most. In this novel, it's Butch Karp who goes to work for the Select Committee, bringing along investigator Clay Fulton and attorney V. T. Newbury. Karp's wife, Marlene Ciampi, and toddler daughter, Lucy, stay in New York, but when the slimy district attorney throws a major pass, Marlene heads south. Oppressed by inactivity as a Washington "wife of," she volunteers to organize the evidence a Select Committee member has gathered to clear his late father of the spying allegations that forced him out of government after World War II. Inevitably, the two investigations intersect, and all the usual suspects--Mafia capos and soldiers, past and present CIA agents and assets, past and present Russian spies, and Lee Harvey Oswald--dance once more across the stage. Tanenbaum's edgy tone is a good fit for the unsettling questions the American people may never resolve about that sunny afternoon in Dallas. Expect requests. Mary Carroll

“With Corruption of Blood, Tanenbaum is now the one to beat.” —_Publishers Weekly_

“Legal suspense like no one else—smart, fast-paced, Tanenbaum’s best yet.” —F. Lee Bailey