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Title: IN THE SHADOW OF THE WHITE
HOUSE
Genre: thriller (political/spy/military)
Author: Bruce Deitrick Price
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THE BIG IDEA: a tough, complex, Clancy-type thriller...told not from the top down (Prime Ministers, CIA Directors, etc.)...but
from the bottom up (minor agents, farmers, little people)...The result is a more intimate thriller--quirky, romantic, emotional.
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THE
STORY: August, 1996. A rogue Russian agent shows up in a remote part of Virginia Beach with stolen files. His aim is to blackmail
an old farmer who years ago worked for the KGB as a sleeper agent. The Russian is casually confident of success; he dreams
of making easy money and becoming a real American. Only one problem: the tough old farmer tells the Russian to get lost. The
Russian shoots through the farmer’s bedroom window; kills a cow; blows up a barn. But the farmer hopes to kill the Russian,
or at least outlast him. The farmer’s family, on the other hand, is perplexed and scared. They think the old farmer
owes money to the Mafia. “Pay,” they scream.
Meanwhile, the local FBI office gets directives from the
CIA in Washington, asking them to look the other way if “two German businessmen” show up in Virginia Beach. The
top FBI man is puzzled and resentful. “The CIA can’t operate here,” he tells his assistant, “something
weird is going on.” True. The “Germans” are actually Russian agents dispatched to kill the Russian rogue
and retrieve the files--which could be a political embarrassment and a threat to Russia’s requests for American aid.
But the rogue outwits the hitmen, who are arrested. The FBI man intervenes with local police to get the hitmen sprung, but
he hates himself. He wants to know what “the goddamned CIA thinks it’s doing down here in little old Virginia
Beach.” Then a slick operative (he reports to “1600”) arrives to expedite the capture of the troublesome
Russian agent. This operative has the power to suspend the FBI man, and to call in the US Army to hunt down the Russian. Pretty
soon a lot of lives are in danger.
The story is intelligently intricate. The action is vivid and non-stop (every reader
will see the movie possibilities). The intrigue is continuous. Even the Russian hitmen don’t know for sure why they
are on this mission. Everybody in the story tries to figure out what is going on? Could old sleeper files prompt all this
force, this urgency? Maybe the Russians in D.C. lied to secure the White House’s involvement; or maybe they have some
real dirt. There’s a Presidential election coming in three months. Any kind of scandal might hurt the President’s
reelection. Can’t take that chance. The White House operative is ready to waste some of these hicks to save his President...Implicitly,
this is the Clinton scandal that has never been revealed before.
Nine summer days. An appealing setting. An ensemble
cast of fascinating, fully-drawn characters. The emphasis throughout is on these people--their personalities, their passions,
and their interactions. IN THE SHADOW OF THE WHITE HOUSE will make readers laugh and cry.
Price’s last novel,
Too Easy, was hailed by Kinky Friedman as “the unwed mother of all page turners.”
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Bruce
Deitrick Price
Word-Wise Productions
757-455-5020
wisewordsATearthlink.net
©2006 Bruce Deitrick Price
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