A rash of political deaths alerts a New York cop to an international assassination plot At a crime scene, Harry Golding has no fear. But put him in front of a few dozen undergraduates, and he begins to sweat. He agrees to give the lecture on criminology for his brother, a New York University professor, and muddles through it, successful until it comes time for questions. A skinny young conspiracy theorist demands to know what the police are doing about the recent death of a presidential candidate. The answer is, they’re doing nothing. The man died of a heart attack. Case closed. But when another politician drops dead, seemingly of natural causes, Golding remembers the young student’s paranoia. As more politicians die, Harry Golding finds himself in the middle of a terrifying conspiracy that threatens his city, his family, and his life. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate.
EV Cunningham is a pseudonym used by author: Howard Fast, and under that name he wrote 21 mystery novels plus two others, one under his own name and one using another pseudonym Walter Ericson.
He was educated at George Washington High School, graduating in 1931. He attended the National Academy of Design in New York before serving with the Office of War Information between 1942 and 1943 and the Army Film Project in 1944.
He became war correspondent in the Far East for 'Esquire' and 'Coronet' magazines in 1945. And after the war he taught at Indiana University, Bloomington, in the summer of 1947, a year in which he was imprisoned for contempt of Congress, concerning his communistic views.
He became the owner of the Blue Heron Press in New York in 1952, a position he held until 1957. And he was the founder of the World Peace Movement and a member of the World Peace Council from 1950 to 1955 and was later a member of the Fellowship for Reconciliation. In 1952 he was an American Labour Party candidate for Congress for the 23rd District of New York.
He received a great many awards between 1933 and 1967.
He married Bette Cohen in 1937 and they had one son and one daughter.
Under his own name he wrote 35 works of fiction plus a variety of history and critical works, short stories, plays and a screenplay, 'The Hessian' (1971) plus a book of verse with William Gropper.
He died died at his home in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, on 12 March 2003.
PROTAGONIST: Harry Golding, NYPD lieutenant SETTING: New York City RATING: 2.5 WHY: An NYPD Jewish cop named Harry Golding and his Irish wife, Fran, meet a charming Israeli politico at a function. The man later dies of a stroke. Harry suspects murder after seeing connections to other recent deaths. I found the book charming at first, due to the bantering yet respectful relationship between Harry and Fran. But then it went downhill, growing more and more ludicrous with every page. There’s some kind of Latin American death squad at work. There are a lot of murders, many of them with no real reason for happening. And bugs have been planted everywhere, including Harry’s desk at work. They seem to be wherever Harry went; I was surprised he didn’t find one in his boxer shorts. The attempts to kill Harry were curiously inept. I’m amazed I finished the book, since it was so flawed.