Book Log 2009 #45: Jericho's Fall by Stephen Carter

I've loved Carter's previous novels, thrillers featuring upper class African-Americans at the highest levels of the academic and legal communities. This book is a radical departure from that universe, perhaps too radical.

Jericho Ainsley is former CIA director (and former Secretary of Defense and former National Security Advisor) who is slowly dying of cancer in his home in the Colorado Rockies. Beck DeForde, the woman he threw his career away to be with when she was a student of his at Princeton, is summoned to the house in his final days. She's not sure why, though it slowly becomes clear that he wants to confide in her, and that there are a variety of people out there who want to know what, from American and foreign intelligence agencies to corporate titans to Ainsley's own daughters.

Carter set out to write a page-turner, and he does manage to ratchet up the tension admirably, creating a sort of seige mentality by playing off the remote location with a constant barrage of surveiland and suspicion. But I don't think the story every quite gets to where it wants to go, and while we get a somewhat clear picture of what secret Ainsley is looking to spill, the ending leaves a lot unanswered, which is kind of unsatisfying in a book of this style.

It's still written well - Carter hasn't lost anything there - but I don't know if he's best suited for writing thrillers. An interview with him on Amazon.com suggests that he enjoyed writing it and would write more if reaction to this one was good. I'd probably have another book set in the same universe as The Emperor Of Ocean Park, but I'd take another thriller, as I imagine that Carter would do better the second time around.