The Hellfire Club

New York: Little, Brown & Co, 2018. First Edition [stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. [8], 342, [2] pages. Signed by the author sticker on the front of the dust jacket. Signed with sentiment on the title page, reads Thank you! Jake Tapper. DJ has slight edgewear. Jacob Paul Tapper (born March 12, 1969) is an American journalist and author. He is the lead Washington anchor for CNN, hosts the weekday television news show The Lead with Jake Tapper, and co-hosts the Sunday morning public affairs program State of the Union. In 2023, Tapper was nominated for multiple News & Documentary Emmy Awards and took home two of them, one for being part of CNN's team that won for Outstanding Live Breaking News Coverage for "Russian Invasion of Ukraine", the other for Outstanding Live News Special for "Live from the Capitol: One Year Later", which he co-anchored. Before joining CNN, Tapper worked for ABC News as Senior White House Correspondent, where he received three Merriman Smith Memorial Awards from the White House Correspondents' Association. Tapper helped with the coverage of the inauguration of President Obama that earned an Emmy Award for Outstanding Live Coverage of a Current News Story. His book The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor debuted at number 10 in November 2012 on The New York Times Best Seller list for hardback non-fiction. Tapper's book and his reporting on the veterans and troops were cited when the Congressional Medal of Honor Society awarded him the "Tex" McCrary Award for Excellence in Journalism. A young Congressman stumbles on the powerful political underworld of 1950's D.C. in this New York Times bestseller from CNN correspondent Jake Tapper. Charlie Marder is an unlikely Congressman. Thrust into office by his family ties after his predecessor died mysteriously, Charlie is struggling to navigate the dangerous waters of 1950s Washington, DC, alongside his young wife Margaret, a zoologist with ambitions of her own. Amid the swirl of glamorous and powerful political leaders and deal makers, a mysterious fatal car accident thrusts Charlie and Margaret into an underworld of backroom deals, secret societies, and a plot that could change the course of history. When Charlie discovers a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of government, he has to fight not only for his principles and his newfound political career...but for his life. Derived from a Publishers Weekly article: CNN's chief Washington correspondent Tapper makes his fiction debut with an intriguing political thriller set during the McCarthy era. In December 1953, a New York seat in the House of Representatives becomes vacant upon its occupant's mysterious death. Charlie Marder, a Columbia University academic and WWII veteran, is appointed to fill it after some backstage maneuvering from his well-connected father, a Manhattan power broker. Marder and his zoologist wife, Margaret, make the move to D.C., which is in the grips of Senator Joseph McCarthy's Red Scare, as well as the dual shining lights of the Kennedy brothers. It's soon clear that Marder is more pawn than player in a political chess game, even when he tries to stand up against money being funneled to a company that produced shoddy gas masks during the war. He makes friends with the veterans on Capitol Hill, joining them in liquor-soaked poker games. Tapper, whose intimate knowledge of Washington is undeniable, initially spends time building up the ambience of the 1950s than developing the plot, but once Marder closes in on a secret society and its tentacles within the government, the action rapidly picks up. Fans of well-researched historicals will be rewarded.