Embrace the Serpent

Though no match for the Brontes, Alsops or Jameses, the Quayles are making their own little splash in the publishing sea. Dan Quayle's new manifesto, The American Family, is due out in May, and here comes a new thriller from his wife and her sister (who previously coauthored Embrace the Serpent), in its own way a politically charged paean to ""family values."" U.S. Senator Bob Grant, running for a third term from Georgia, is topping Republican presidential polls even though he's black, and is being eyed warily by the Democratic incumbent. Grant has a comfortable lead in his Senate race but, nine days before the election, a reporter for the liberal Washington Herald is murdered while working on a story that purportedly would ruin the senator. When Grant's college-age son is then arrested in a set-up drug bust, the senator sets out with a few loyal friends to find the truth. The Grant family makes TV's Huxtables look like hippies (to the Grants, religion is ""the sustainer of their lives individually and as a married couple""), while the Democratic president is presented as a philandering wimp controlled by his ruthless attorney general. Other targets in the authors' sights include liberal journalists who determine ""the focus, content, and in essence the bias of much of the national news,"" and politicians who ""accepted no responsibility for their actions... such depravity was excused and even condoned."" A novel like this one makes you realize how good Anonymous is--and how inept are authors who pen lines such as, ""Like an hourglass whose sands had expired, Rebecca Hunter slowly sagged to the floor."" Just like this novel, in fact. $70,000 ad/promo; author tour. (May)