Menasha Public Library (Elisha D. Smith)

Back channel, a novel, Stephen L. Carter

eng

no index present

fiction

Back channel

879983537

Stephen L. Carter

a novel

"From the best-selling author of The Emperor of Ocean Park and The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln-a new novel of terrific suspense and surprise: a brilliant amalgam of fact and fiction about a young black woman on whom the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis depends. October 1962. In Cuba: Soviet ships off-load what intelligence reveals to be nuclear missiles. In Washington, President Kennedy and his advisers are in furious debate over how long they can wait to discover what the Soviets intend before dropping the first bomb. And, in Ithaca, New York, Margo Jensen a nineteen-year-old Cornell sophomore is swept up in a "bizarre concatenation of circumstances" that will make of her the "back channel" liaison between Soviet Premier Khrushchev and Kennedy. Events unfold too quickly for her even to ask "why me?" But the stunning answer is revealed bit by bit as she races from Ithaca to Bulgaria to Washington, D.C., drawn ever more deeply into the crossfire figurative and literal of infighting between governmental agencies, both American and Soviet; into the confidence and unsettlingly the affection of the president of the United States; into desperate negotiations to avoid nuclear war; and, finally, into the secrets of the extraordinary legacy of honor and bravery she inherited from the father she never knew"--, Provided by publisher