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Summary
Summary
For years, Edgar-nominee ( Fade the Heat ) Jay Brandon has enthralled readers with novels set in the legal world of his hometown of San Antonio, Texas. But with Executive Privilege , Brandon chooses a wider stage and brings the reader an all-new thriller set against the backdrop of our nation's capital, the story of a wife's desperate attempt to save herself and her young son from her husband, a man involved with selling our nation's secrets and willing to do whatever he can to ensure that his family doesn't get away. The wife? Myra McPherson, the First Lady of the United States.
When San Antonio attorney David Owens wins an important divorce case, he hopes the victory will bring him some new business. But he never imagined that the First Lady, a Texas native, would walk through his office door. Shy and fearful, the First Lady explains that she needs to divorce the President, to get herself and her young son out of the White House. The President is engaged in dangerous dealings . . . and has been unfaithful. But no woman has ever divorced a sitting President, and while every President has secrets, none are like the secrets this President wants to protect: his nefarious dealings with a billionaire businessman willing to use his money and power to manipulate even the leader of our nation.
When the news breaks, the publicity is huge, but the threat is even bigger. Orders have been given to kill the First Lady and her son, and all that stands in the way is her divorce lawyer and one Secret Service agent whose oath to protect her charges is more important to her than the power of the President.
With all the elements of a great thriller and a great courtroom drama, Jay Brandon delivers a novel sure to keep you up long past your bedtime.
Author Notes
Jay Brandon is an attorney and author. He was born in Texas in 1953. Brandon received a master's degree in writing from Johns Hopkins University.
Brandon has served with the Court of Criminal Appeals, the Baxter County District Attorney's Office, and the San Antonio Court of Appeals during his legal career. He practices law in San Antonio, Texas.
Brandon's novel, Loose Among the Lambs, was a main selection of the Literary Guild. Another novel, Fade the Heat, was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel of the Year. Booklist magazine gave his novel, Deadbolt, an Editor's Choice award. An article he wrote about the judicial races in San Antonio won a Gavel Award from the State Bar Association in 1994.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Kirkus Review
Inside inexperienced young San Antonio attorney David Owens, there's a Clarence Darrow screaming to get out. Among those eager for the metamorphosis is Myra Ferguson, who happens to be the First Lady of the Land. She's been watching avidly as David out-dueled a battery of lawyerly Goliaths to win a big-time divorce case. Nice settlement, custody of the kids, hamstrung husband who clearly didn't think his high-powered minions had a chance of losing. Why such lively interest? To her, the parallels are obvious, since the president's wife seeks to become the president's ex. There are things, naughty things, illegal things, going on in her husband's White House she wants no part of. Even more importantly, she wants her little boy out from under. Wicked Wilson Boswell, kingpin of TitanWorks, a software mega-corporation, is one of President Ferguson's most influential advisors. He's secretly been developing technology that will enable him to steal e-mail from anyone anywhere. Iago that he is, he'll stop at nothing to gain insidious ends. For reasons better known to him than to Brandon's readers, he's decided that his nefarious plans are threatened by homemaker Myra and eight-year-old Randy. Boswell dispatches his pet nutcase, a brilliant if homicidal nerd, to track them down, object assassination. But heroic divorce lawyer David, together with curvy, unswervingly loyal secret agent Helen, parry the killer-geek at every turn in the virtual highway. Many of Brandon's potboilers (Afterimage, 2000, etc.) have been salvaged by courtroom pyrotechnics. Not this time. The suspense scenes are too scattered and mild, the plotting too wooly and wild.
Booklist Review
Sometimes you're settling into a thriller and you think: why hasn't someone thought of this before? Although the idea of the First Lady divorcing her husband while he's still the president may have seemed farfetched a few years back, it's entirely plausible these days, and it's a little surprising that it has taken this long for someone to write a novel about it. And a fine novel it is, too: exciting, smart, deceptive. How would the wife of the U.S. president go about getting a divorce, anyway? That's what Texas attorney David Owens needs to find out after he's hired to act as her lawyer. Owens is instantly propelled into the top levels of American government and into a plot of devilish complexity that threatens to ruin his career, if it doesn'st kill him first. Brandon, the author of 11 previous novels, sets us up to expect a hairraising finale, and he delivers the goods. An expert blend of intelligent plotting and adrenalinepumping suspense. --David Pitt