WILL UNWOUND #294: “Will’s Mystery Project – ‘Murder at the National Cathedral’ by Margaret Truman
December 3, 2010I don’t know how a toaster works and I don’t care. Ditto for central air conditioning, microwave ovens, ithingys, automobiles, jet airplanes, and trombones. That’s right. As long as they hum along properly I don’t care how things work with one major exception: politics.
I am a political junkie. My addiction started when I was 12 years old when read the now classic book, The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore H. White.
High up on the list of reasons why libraries should get full funding is that books change lives. We all say that but do we truly believe it? I do. Theodore H. White made me a believer.
Until I met Mr. White, all I read was baseball books. Then along came Mr. White and I discovered something as competitive and exciting as baseball – politics. It was all there – stars and team players, inside strategy, power plays, last minute finishes, heavy hitters, brush back pitches, dirty tricks, the world series of debates, and most of all…the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Nixon vs. Kennedy was right up there with the Yankees vs. the Dodgers. Kennedy was Yankee icon Mickey Mantle (the matinee idol with the boyish good looks) and Nixon was the dark and brooding Dodger manager Leo Durocher (“nice guys finish last”). Yes, it was all there, and I became captivated.
Lucky for me that in those days there existed a great galaxy of political thriller authors to enjoy (fiction and non) from Fletcher Knebel (Seven Days in May) to Allen Drury (Advise and Consent). Then over time I worked my way up to Doris Kearns Goodwin, David McCullough, and finally on to the very best political writer of all time Robert Caro (The Power Broker).
For a political junkie like me it is gold, pure gold to find a new star in the literary political galaxy. Well, shame on me. She’s not a new star at all. Margaret Truman has been writing books for many years. But because of my deep seated and very stubborn prejudice against the mystery genre, I pooh poohed her as a lightweight literary wannabe trading off her father’s good name. Stupid me…and a librarian to boot!
Now that I’ve actually read one of her books (Murder at the National Cathedral), here’s what I love about Margaret Truman: 1) She inherited her father’s style – direct, straightforward, lively, and compelling. 2) This woman knows her way around the power centers of Washington, New York, and London. 3) She understands power in all of its best and worst manifestations. 4) She understands that the most powerful people are often quite obscure. 5) She has a good grasp of the aphrodisiac effect of power on the relationships between men and women. 6) She understands how to take full creative advantage of the nuanced interstices between the legal system and the political system. Finally, 6) She knows how to construct a damned good whodunit plot.
I also liked the fact that in this book the clergy are the victims and not the detectives. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a clergy hater. In fact I greatly admire and humbly appreciate the men and women of the cloth who have dedicated their lives to a higher purpose. But who would kill not just one Reverend Father but two? It’s a captivating question that becomes the challenge for the detective team of Mac Smith (a law professor) and his new bride Annabel Reed (an art gallery owner).
If what I have written hasn’t convinced you that Margaret Truman is the real deal consider the opening paragraph from Murder at the National Cathedral:
- “Mackensie Smith, contented professor of law at George Washington University, formerly discontented but preeminent Washington criminal lawyer, told himself to focus on what was about to happen…his wedding ceremony. He’d been thinking moments before about what an ambivalent structure a cathedral was. So much majesty and awe – so much stone – so much bloodshed in the older ones over centuries. How inspiring these Gothic monuments to the simple act of believing in something greater and good, and how dangerous, as with all religion, when in the hands of creatures who get carried away and misuse the potent metaphor of faith.”
A great mystery writer hooks you in on the very first paragraph. Margaret Truman is a great mystery writer. Her entire “Capital Crime Series” has gone to the very top of my “to read” list.
I give Murder in the National Cathedral 5 patriotic American stars (out of 5).
So Harry doesn’t have to give you “a beefsteak for your eye and some support below” posthumously? (I’m a junkie too)
Oh, wait, that was how he defended, Margaret, right? Can’t remember who the attacker was. I seem to think it was a newspaper writer or editor. At any rate, great quote, Bill, and thanks for challenging my pq…political quotient.
He used his own stamp, too. Truman had a well-defined understanding of the difference between the Presidency and his role in it versus what was his own responsibility. When he left office, he and Bessy drove themselves home to Missouri.
Mick, are you working on a guest post about your recent Holy Land travels? The unwinders are looking forward to it.
Agreed on a post about your travels, Mick. I’d like to read about them.
Another thing Harry Truman did after he left office was to take a road trip–a three-week excursion with Bess, in a ’53 Chrysler, from Independence to the East Coast and back. I learned about that from a book that arrived at our library this summer, Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure (http://www.trumanroadtrip.com/page/page/6814760.htm). Among other details, he liked to track his mileage by keeping careful records of how much gas he got at every fill-up and the miles on the odometer at that point. (As do I, though Truman’s other good qualities didn’t ride along with that habit, alas!)
Music critic for either the NY Times or the Washington Post. Not kind to her singing. I think it was in “Mr. President” — a wonderful book and a quick read. but if you’re a Nixon fan you won’t like the unexpurgated view of Nixon.
digression: I was in SoCal just before Thanksgiving and went to the Nixon Library. I’m a bona fide left winger. Looking at it, I became more convinced than ever that the President who Obama is closest to ideologically and in terms of personality is Nixon — except that Obama seems to have a moral compass.
Bill, I think that is an interesting observation. Nixon and Obama similarities: a) personal remoteness, b) intellectuals, c) adversarial with press, d) authors of interesting books, e) distaste for retail politics, f) preference for foreign affairs, g) rose to political prominence at a young age, and h) transplants without strong roots. One big difference is that we have not seen a chilling dark side from Obama. One of my boys became a Nixon junkie at an early age (via a school book report)and so we spent several vacations at the Nixon Library. My own Nixon theory is rather simple. He felt that he was cheated out of the 60 Presidential prize and made a decision that this would never, ever happen to him again. Hence his latent dark side emerged and slowly came to control him.
Hmmm, not sure I can buy your theory Will, re Nixon. Nixon was doing nasty political stunts way before the Kennedy campaign that he felt was stolen from him. Check out the “Pink Lady” if my memory serves me right. He claimed this opponent was interested in “Commie” ideology which of course destroyed her in the 1950s when the race occurred.
As for Margaret Truman, I’m afraid I have been prejudiced against her. So many of the best seller authors are really awful that I haven’t given her a fair chance. I’ll have to put in a reserve! And with her being a well known name, I figured she was parlaying her name into money for her books. I do like Elliot Roosevelt though. He wrote using Eleanor as detective. He really gives you the atmosphere of the times and some of the political give and take.
JR…Nixon’s dirty tricks in the 40s and 50s were typical McCarthy era redbaiting. They were out in the open for people to judge. Nixon’s dirty tricks in the 70′s were subterranean and quite malicious.
It may have been out in the open, but the truth was still drastically distorted by Nixon. I guess what I’m saying is that the leopard doesn’t change his spots. Nixon was a nasty person from the get go, politically. Having said this, in terms of foreign policy as well as some domestic policy, Nixon would be considered a liberal these days by the incredibly conservative part of the Republican party. He pursued a really smart policy in China with his “ping pong diplomacy” and he set up the EPA in the United States among other achievements. Kennedy was the first president to realize the value of TV on an election. That 5 O’ Clock shadow did as much to defeat Nixon as many oher things on the campaign trail. Nixon lost because of his lack of understanding of the then “new” media, as much as any other reason.
The only book by a T.H. White that I like is Once and Future King. Love the quote by Merlin in there, “Stupidity is a sin against the Holy Ghost.”
I’m reminded that I need to revisit White’s Arthurian books before I keel over. That’s a great quote, though like Jefferson’s reflection that God is just, it makes me tremble for my country. The Holy Ghost must be really ticked about now.