House of Secrets-Richard Hawke

House of Secrets
Richard Hawke
Random House, May 11 2010, $25.00
ISBN: 9781400066087

U.S. Senator Andrew Foster believes his manifest destiny is the White House. He has everything going for him that an ambitious person needs and with the vice president forced to resesign, a potential rival is out of the game with an opening for him to move up. However, like a Shakespearean tragic figure, Andrew has a flaw; the married Andy loves the women.

At his Shelter Island, New York bungalow, Andy enjoys sex with his campaign adviser Joy when Robert Smallwood crashes through the glass door. The intruder hammers the young woman with a pipe before leaving her dead. Andy flees into the night, but Dimitri Bulakov was taping Foster’s infidelity when he captured the homicide and flight. Whereas Bulakov’s clients blackmail Foster over his affair, he blackmails them over the tape.

This is an exciting thriller in which failure to remain zippered may nuke the political and personal lives of Foster. Although the motive for Joy’s murder seems over the top of the moraines, the strong cast and frantic pace from the opening bungalow invasion to the final confrontation with numerous subplots in between will leave readers enjoying this entertaining tale.

Harriet Klausner