2018 School Spending Survey Report
Jack 1939
Riverhead: Penguin Group (USA). Jul. 2012. c.368p. ISBN 9781594487194. $26.95. F
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Mathews (writing as Stephanie Barron) is continuing her successful Jane Austen mystery series, but this is an author who likes to stretch. In her latest thriller (after The Alibi Club), her protagonist is a young John "Jack" Kennedy, tasked by Franklin Roosevelt with trying to figure out how the Germans are funneling money into American elections. The goal of the Germans is to keep America on its isolationist path and uninvolved (in an active sense) with what is going on in Europe. Jack, who equally battles his mysterious illness and his powerful father, is seen by most as a somewhat unpromising scion of the Kennedy family; however, FDR sees a bright young man willing to take risks, and those are qualities he can put to use.
VERDICT Though this reviewer was skeptical about how well a fictional Kennedy would work, she should have trusted Mathews. Young Jack Kennedy makes for a flawed but appealing protagonist, and the espionage plot is complex and thrilling in equal parts. For fans of Stella Rimington and Olen Steinhauer. [See Prepub Alert, 1/8/12.]
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