Roy Hoopes is a career journalist in Washington, DC, and the author of Cain, the Edgar Award winning biography of James M Cain. His first novel is an historical detective tale featuring James M Cain and H L Mencken as two Baltimore journalists. They are investigating the deaths and sex scandal in 1923 Harding - administration Washington, DC, in the season before the big Teapot Dome Scandal breaks. There is a remarkable relevance of 1920s scandals to today's political environment, but that remains a backdrop. Mencken and Cain, two bright literary men playing Holmes and Watson, take the train to DC to get the real scoop. They drink a lot, meet a mysterious sexy redhead named Roxy, a rogue named Gaston B Means and get a lot more than they bargained for. They don't solve a crime but with hard-boiled enthusiasm they expose some of the roots of the malaise of the capital. All the speaking roles are real historical characters.
| ||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"A total delight to anyone who is a fan of Cain, Mencken, politics or the never-ending saga of human folly."-The Washington Post
". . .it's hard to shake the feeling that you've had a peek at real history: Is this all merely well-told fiction, or did Cain learn facts from Mencken that in turn were shared with Hoopes?"-John W. Dean, author of Blind Ambition
"The biggest challenge the reader faces in Our Man is believing that the incredible plot is based so heavily on fact-while also remembering that this is not a contemporary novel. Consider the key plot elements: suicides suspected by many to be murder, oil money payoffs, corrupt politicians, sex in the White House coat closet, illegitimate offspring, jobs swapped for campaign money. Fortunately, the inclusion of a lively subplot involving the Hope Diamond helps the reader stay firmly in the right decade."--The Washington Post
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
". . .it's hard to shake the feeling that you've had a peek at real history: Is this all merely well-told fiction, or did Cain learn facts from Mencken that in turn were shared with Hoopes?"-John W. Dean, author of Blind Ambition
"The biggest challenge the reader faces in Our Man is believing that the incredible plot is based so heavily on fact-while also remembering that this is not a contemporary novel. Consider the key plot elements: suicides suspected by many to be murder, oil money payoffs, corrupt politicians, sex in the White House coat closet, illegitimate offspring, jobs swapped for campaign money. Fortunately, the inclusion of a lively subplot involving the Hope Diamond helps the reader stay firmly in the right decade."--The Washington Post
About the Author
Roy Hoopes lives in the Washington DC area.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An entertaining political novel,
By
This review is from: Our Man in Washington (Hardcover)
Although the story line of this book is Pres. Harding's administration in the early 1920s, there is a relevance to today's presidential political scene. For example, Harding engaged in illicit sexual affairs which the author exemplifies by Harding's "jollying" of a young women in a White House broom closet. Pres. Clinton did his in the oval office. Also Harding was not one of this nation's most intelligent presidents. And in the current presidential election there is a question about the intelligence of one of the candidates. The author chose a real person,H. L. Mencken to conduct a fictionalized investigation of the corruption in Harding's administraion. The author also tries to depict Mencken as he revealed himself in his writings and as he was depicted in his biographies. Mencken, perhaps the nation's most famous iconoclast who had an opinion on everything in American society, relishes his role in this book of observing and commenting on the morons and clowns in Harding's administration known as the "Ohio Gang" who Harding brought with him to Washington. They are also real people who appear in the book. Harding's attorney general was tried twice for his misdeeds. His secretary of the interior and his director of the the Veterans Bureau were imprisoned. Mencken is paired with another real person, James Cain, who is best know for his hard-boiled crime fiction. This duo takes the reader on an entertaining tour of Harding's corrupt Washington. And along the way readers will meet such literary notables as Henry Luce and Sinclair Lewis. There is also a fictionalized sexual affair by Cain and a real woman who was the darling of the Washington press corp when she testified in real life against Harding's attorney general at a senate hearing. The entertaining part of this novel are Mencken's conversatins which permeate the book
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
