A Conspiracy of Tall Men [Paperback]

Noah Hawley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1999

Linus Owen is a young professor of conspiracy theory at a small college just outside San Francisco. He teaches graduate-level classes on JFK and gives seminars on magic-bullet theories and how the symbols on the dollar bill reveal the presence of a secret government that is leading the world to ruin.

Linus' marriage is foundering and his wife, Claudia, an up-and-coming advertising executive, has gone to Chicago to visit her mother. But if Claudia is in Chicago, how is it that two FBI agents show up at Linus' office and inform him that Claudia has been killed in a plane crash on her way from New York to Brazil? And why did a man named Jeffrey Holden, the vice president of a major pharmaceutical company, buy her ticket and die beside her?

Enlisting the aid of Edward and Roy -- his friends and fellow conspiracy theorists -- Linus heads across the country in search of answers. Along the way, the trio encounters a legion of disturbing and provocative characters and clues, including an irascible talk show host, a mind-controlling drug, and art emerging link between Claudia's ad agency and the U.S, Government. As their journey progresses, it becomes frighteningly clear they've left the realm of the academic and are tangled up in a dangerous, multilayered cover-up. Finally, deep in the heart of the American desert, stunned by an ominous revelation, Linus sees he has a new minion: to try to stay alive.

With writing that is electric, whip-smart and suspenseful at each turn, Noah Hawley draws us into a deliciously labyrinthine world of paranoia and plots.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Noah Hawley quickly sucks us into his loopy, frightening first thriller by creating a perfect world of present-tense paranoia. "Here among the tabouli salads and unprocessed soy drinks the three conspiracy theorists meet each week to discuss developments in the interconnected network of plots driving the world toward a new order," he writes about the lunches that his hero--Linus Owens, a 35-year-old professor of conspiracy theory at Modesto College in San Rafael, California--has with his two friends. "Edward and Roy, despite Roy's innocuous job at Radio Shack and Edward's mostly shut-in status, are cutting-edge anarchists, publishers of anarchic newsletters, organizers of the new virtual revolution. Linus, in contrast, feels sheltered in the fat nest of academia. Sometimes he doubts his phone is even bugged...." But when Claudia, the perfectly normal wife he has somehow managed to acquire, is apparently killed in a plane crash on her way to Brazil (Owens thought she was in Chicago visiting her mother), he has to leave that fat nest and move out into what passes for the real world. It's a place where CIA agents lie about being FBI agents, where his wife's advertising business has sinister connections, and where nothing--or everything--is what he and his crazy companions think it is. --Dick Adler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Orwellian echoes haunt this provocative, tongue-in-cheek debut chiller about bureaucratic mind control. When the feds fly Linus Owens, a professor of conspiracy theory at a small San Francisco college, to Florida to identify his wife's body at the site of a terrorist airliner bombing, he's devastated to learn she was on her way to Brazil with a secret lover. Mistrustful of the government, Linus coerces the airline into supplying him with the plane's unaltered passenger list and sets out with a pair of fellow conspiracy analysts to find the radicals responsible for his wife's death. After the three academics pull off some fancy computer hacking, Linus escapes the spying eyes of his pill-popping, neurotic "FBI" (really CIA) babysitter and heads cross-country to track the culprits to their lair. Marital infidelity, an enigmatic terrorist group called Danton, the long-forgotten disappearance of a talk-radio rabble-rouser, pharmaceutical intrigue involving clandestine trials of a mind-control drug, government-orchestrated kidnapping and murder all figure in the plot. Linus's search turns up more dead ends than a street map of Washington, D.C., until, by the end of this suspenseful, cerebral satire, staying alive becomes more important than finding answers as the outraged professor matches wits with men in black.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 370 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books; Original edition (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671038249
• ISBN-13: 978-0671038243
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,707,332 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Some of us actually READ for entertainment., October 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Conspiracy of Tall Men (Paperback)

I'm not looking for the next Henry James when I read fiction. I'm looking to be entertained with an intelligent story and insightful characters that I can sympathize with. I just read this again for the second time and still found it satisfying in its mix of progressive prose style, witty commentary on society and sheer entertainment value.

Don't stop short at comparing the plot and characters to an X-files episode. If you do you're missing the point. Read it again, now that the TV show is on its last legs, for the refreshing dose of paranoia that we all need once in awhile.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great mental images, January 21, 2000

By 

Barbara Bucher (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Conspiracy of Tall Men (Paperback)

Not being a professor I do not pretend to critique Mr. Hawley's technical abilities as a writer, nor can I comment on overuse of material seen already in X-files as I quit that program after the first year. I can, however, endorse the mental images his writing conveys, especially when describing events in Florida, having been a long-time resident there myself. His book did exactly what I want any book to do - it entertained me, kept my interest and made me care about the characters. In my view, most writing is at least slightly an echo of the efforts of others. How could it not be? There has been so much writing it would be almost impossible not to allude to something someone else has written, but I think perhaps he may have avoided the Shakespear trap.

Regardless of any legitimate criticism another more advanced writer may have, I enjoyed the book thoroughly. At one point, I recall a newspaper article about Patrick Stewart being interested in making it a movie. While the book may not go down as deathless prose in the eyes of the scholars, I think it would make one heck of a movie and hope something comes of that.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars There are unfavorable omens in the sky, April 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Conspiracy of Tall Men (Hardcover)

I didn't really like it. It seemed amateurish and similar to a lot of other stuff that's out there. I guess that I also dont't like the industry's evaluation of what consitutes 'great literature'. Pretty soon, every adolescent will be writing his minum opus and every reviewer will be telling us how great and innovative it is even though its the same old shtick. I wonder why so many hacks are attracted to the literary profession?