Tangle of former lovers and a national security threat

August 09, 2009|Chris Bohjalian

Sometimes when I’m reading a novel by Stephen L. Carter, I feel a bit like that kid who has the X-Men comic book hidden behind the geometry textbook.

Carter is a distinguished law professor at Yale University. His debut novel, “The Emperor of Ocean Park,’’ was a poignant and powerful tale of a judge whose Supreme Court aspirations collapse in scandal and whose life ends in mystery, and his cuckolded son who suddenly is seeing conspiracies everywhere. Carter’s work has about it the penumbra of literary refinement, even if the books that followed have been a little heavier on plot and a little lighter on character development. Nevertheless, I seek out Carter’s novels and turn the pages with enthusiasm.

His new thriller, “Jericho’s Fall,’’ has perhaps the most Byzantine plot twists yet and enough red herrings to feed every guest at a mystery writers’ gala. I enjoyed it immensely, even if there were moments when I thought the plausibility meter was way off the charts.

The basic premise? Jericho Ainsley, former CIA director, former secretary of defense, former executive at the prestigious Wall Street private equity firm of Scondell, Bloom and Notting, is dying of cancer at his massive estate in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. He is old and tired, seemingly delusional, and he summons to the compound Rebecca “Beck’’ DeForde, the 32-year-old with whom he had an affair when DeForde was a Princeton sophomore, and Ainsley was doing a little teaching. Their affair didn’t last two years, but it resulted in Ainsley’s divorce and fall from political grace, and DeForde’s dropping out of Princeton and traveling around the world as an emotionally wounded, underachieving stoner. Beck is now a midlevel executive and merchandizing manager at a retail chain, divorced, and raising her 7-year-old daughter on her own. She is still an underachiever, but at least she reads Edwidge Danticat.