The Anniversary

It's been a year since America's first female president, Melanie Lombard, was felled by an assassin's bullet after only three days in office. Among those still recovering from her death is this first novel's narrator, Nora Whitney, a software expert and the late president's closest friend. Now Nora has learned that Melanie may have conducted a long-term adulterous affair with a politically shady Frenchman with whom Nora herself once had a fling. Nora fears that any public revelation of the dead president's indiscretions will sabotage her political legacy, including forward-looking educational and environmental reforms. The chances of that increase dramatically when acclaimed political biographer David Weinhardt begins to pump Nora for information on Melanie. Events complicate further when Nora is drafted by the White House as a lobbyist, leading to a few attempts on her own life, and to the question: Did Melanie's assassin act alone, or was she part of a conspiracy? It's hard to credit Nora's underestimation of the danger she's in once she begins poking around, and the basic premise--that the dead president's program would be deep-sixed because of a revelation of marital infidelity--is difficult to swallow. The present-tense narration can be awkward, too--at times flat, at times overblown. Although Canon provides some interesting twists, including an enjoyable foray into the business side of virtual reality, this odd mix of political/high-tech thriller and character study doesn't showcase her apparent talents to maximum advantage. (July)