Purple Dots - ISBNLookup.com

Texas Monthly

Lehrer's writing is smoothly suspenseful. . . . If you're seeking a punchy read, White Widow is just the ticket.

Charles Flowers

[P]rovides comic relief in a turbulent political season. . .[and] probes deftlyif not too deeplyinto. . . corruption of idealists and the triumph of hypocrisy. —The New York Times Book Review

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

PBS newsman and veteran novelist Lehrer White Widow neatly interweaves ruthlessness, hypocrisy and CIA intrigue in this disarming political thriller. Ex-CIA operative Charlie Henderson comes out of retirement to clear the name of his friend and fellow spy Josh Bennett, whose nomination for CIA chief has Republican Senator Marty Madigan frantically digging for dirt. It seems Madigan is following orders from Senator Lank Simmons of New Mexico, who is being blackmailed, in turn, by a Texas senator who has New Mexico's water supply under his thumb and happens to back a certain undesirable candidate for the Supreme Court. Lehrer gains satirical mileage by narrating the same events from the viewpoints of both Charlie and Marty. Although Marty comes off as a slick, aggressive opportunist in Charlie's version, he earns the reader's sympathy in his own account as a young, ambitious politician caught in a complicated power struggle between his self-interested superiors. As the opponents wrestle their way toward a gratifying resolution, Lehrer deftly exposes duplicity and pettiness on both sides through smart if occasionally overblown dialogue that spoofs their simultaneous lack of communication and merciless competition for powers great and small such as the "purple dots" on license plates, which prevent car towing in Washington. Lehrer maintains admirable objectivity: no character is ultimately sympathetic or completely tarred and feathered by the end of this pointed portrait of Capitol Hill. Oct. FYI: In October, Doubleday will publish Breaking News, the third novel by Lehrer's longtime and now former collaborator on The News Hour, Robert MacNeil.

Library Journal

Taking off some time from newscasting, Lehrer crafts a political thriller about the confirmation of a CIA director with a protagonist who's sharp, witty, and over 65.

Library Journal

Taking off some time from newscasting, Lehrer crafts a political thriller about the confirmation of a CIA director with a protagonist who's sharp, witty, and over 65.

Charles Flowers

[P]rovides comic relief in a turbulent political season. . .[and] probes deftly, if not too deeply, into. . . corruption of idealists and the triumph of hypocrisy. -- The New York Times Book Review

Kirkus Reviews

What ought to be the routine confirmation of a new CIA director spins predictably, and entertainingly, out of control in newscaster Lehrer's dark D.C. comedy. There's no reason that Joshua Bennett's confirmation shouldn't breeze through the Senate Intelligence Committee, thinks Josh's old friend Charlie Henderson. As the Agency's deputy director, he's eminently qualified; he was too young to get dirtied in Watergate, out of the country during Iran-Contra, and mercifully uninvolved with Aldrich Ames. It's true that there was the dicey episode of the Czech defector, but only Josh and Charlie know how that man got killed, or so Charlie thinks, until one Marty Madigan, eager-beaver Committee minority counsel, turns up at Charlie's B&B full of hints that he knows about the canceled Czech and airily demanding to know more in the name of the Constitution of the United States of America. Meeting with other Blue Ridge retirees (a former tech services agent has gotten a bunch of them settled in the area), Charlie soon decides that Josh is being put on the hot seat because despicable CIA director of operations Russell Bushong has passed all the dirt on him (yes, there's still more) to Marty's boss, Senate Minority Whip Lank Simmons. Josh is ready to fold, but the Blue Ridge retirees advise going on the offensive and promptly blow up Bushong's beloved Jaguar XJ6.

At livid Bushong's vowing revenge, Lehrer (White Widow) abruptly switches from Charlie's to Marty's point of view, revealing a comically sinister side to the witch-hunt against Josh, broadening the satire (much hearty laughter about Marty's inability to keep his mind on the diffident liberal counsel he's determined to make his bride) but focusing on an evergreen target: the eternal Washington culture of lying, which makes every citizen inside the Beltway prevaricate reflexively about every subject under the sun, even though precious few are ever fooled by one another's whoppers. The whole courtly farce is so gentlemanly and understated, right down to the final twist, that most readers will be inoculated before they even feel the sting.