Customer Reviews

Murder in the White House

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Murder in the White House" is the first in the otherwise good 'Murder in Washington' series. Truman hasn't yet shown her best chops. Relying mostly on her personal recollections of White House, she crafts a reasonably good story, albeit with a predictable solution. Most readers will have guessed the President's big 'secret' fifty pages before the protagonists do. The inside scoop on White House is, not surprisingly, the strongest element. The rest is sodden and a bit weak. Truman shows no knowledge at all of the State Dept, guessing that the Secretary of State has a receptionist and a telephone log, as though the Department is run like a high school principal's office. Other agency heads, the Director of the FBI, CIA, etc. seem to be go-fers. Even our hero Ron, the President's Special Counsel, fails to spark much interest. He seems to be an okay guy, but is flat and undeveloped as a character. Truman didn't do her homework for this book, and she hasn't yet developed as a solid writer - either for plot or characterization. As a first effort in a series that gets much stronger over the years, Murder in the White House is not too bad.

The first book in Margaret Truman's Capital Crimes series is moderately entertaining, but no more. The Secretary of State is killed in the White House; the President appoints his inexperienced Junior Counsel to head up the investigation. There's a lot of talk, an action sequence, some more talk, another murder, some more talk, and then it all ends rather hurriedly.

The book's main strength is the way it hints that bigger, darker things are at stake. But it has no real sense of urgency or structure. For example: couldn't the investigators have made a list of all people who had access to the relevant part of the White House at the relevant time, and worked through them one by one? Instead, they seem to be poking around at random. You can never tell whether or not they're really making progress. Another example: the hero didn't vote for the President, has no investigative experience, and yet is put in charge of the investigation. This could be a fascinating hook to explore the President's mixed motivations and the hero's ambition, but it too goes nowhere. The characterization throughout is fairly flat, with only the central puzzle holding the reader's attention.

Oh, and... I guessed the murderer, and more or less the motive. Fun, and somewhat atmospheric just by virtue of its setting, but by no means great.

Margaret Truman has done it again ! This work is set at our nation's most secure home, the White House. Yet a murder happens within the secure walls and the Secret Sevice is out of the loop in trying to solve the mystery. The reader is taken on a clever journey of suspects and situations, each one which seems likely to lead to the solution of the crime. However a first family secret unknown to but a very few of the characters plays a major part in solving the crime. Without saying more, this story is one a reader will not want to put down until reaching the last few pages where the startling conclusion is revealed.

Well written, easy to follow and kept you yearning for the next page. Great book

Once I started reading I couldn't hardly put it down until I finished.

The premise of the book is an interesting one, the secretary of state is found professionally murdered in the White House and the circle of suspects includes the president. However, there are some substantial flaws in the book that seriously reduce the quality of the story. The major one is that the murdered secretary of state is found to have taken bribes and frequented prostitutes. Given that the timeframe is set after the Carter presidency, the premise that no one knew before his death is simply beyond belief. In the post Watergate environment, such misbehavior would have been like a wounded fish to a hungry shark of journalists.
Another major problem is that the secret service agents assigned to guard the president's daughter deliberately allow her to be placed in a dangerous situation. This is implausible, and making the most professional of officers into bumbling incompetents rarely makes a story stronger.
While the original murderer is not the one you may think, there is another murder committed as a cover up and the perpetrator of that crime is rather clear. I enjoyed the book, but found the weaknesses greater than the quality of the tale.

Most of the book is excruciatingly boring. What the "detective" has is nothing but speculations, which we are told he "intuitively knows" (only in third-rate detective stories that serves as usable trial evidence). Then comes the super-melodramatic conclusion, which belongs in Peyton Place (or in any inferior soap opera). The criminals then can't wait to confess everything. The whole thing is an insult to the reader's intelligence.

Margaret Truman (who passed away earlier this year) is best known as the daughter of President Harry S. Truman. But she was also a highly successful mystery author, having written over twenty "Capital Crimes" novels, i.e. murder mysteries that all take place in Washington DC.

MURDER IN THE WHITE HOUSE is Truman's very first novel, published in 1980, when she was fifty-six years old. I found this novel to be mildly entertaining, but little more.

The murder storyline, which involves a slain Secretary of State, was intriguing enough to hold my interest. But the characterization is flat and uninspiring, and certain plot twists simply strain credulity. The writing is solid for a first time effort, but largely flavorless. This is the type of book you read on an airplane and forget about the next day.

My understanding is that Truman's books get better as they go along, so I may try one of her later efforts. But I won't be in any particular hurry to do so. MURDER IN THE WHITE HOUSE is decent enough if you're looking for a short, easy read, but there are far better novels in the genre.

I picked up this book and did not put it down, I finished it in a little over a week.

It is set in Washington and really describes DC and is a classic old fashioned murder mystery. It is very suspenseful and keeps the reader interested. READ IT!! It is really good.

This was my first Margaret Truman book. I enjoyed it and really like her writing style. I agree with some other reviewers that the story was a little lacking but it was a very quick read and I will definately read more of this series as I understand it gets better.