The November Man

Daniel ( Ark ) launches this gripping political thriller with a double murder on Martha's Vineyard, Mass. Because both victims worked for the senatorial reelection campaign of Tim Murphy, a presidential hopeful, island policeman Eric Thorne seeks background information from Lorraine Patton, who had written a book about the candidate, a Vietnam hero. He asks Patton about a photograph taken by one of the victims showing Murphy and a woman, a photo also of interest to aides of the vice-president, himself in the running for the top job. After a third murder, Thorne is taken off the case and fired. Pursuing the crimes on his own, he is warned off by an FBI agent, shot at and his car fire-bombed. Tracing the registration of a plane that had landed on Martha's Vineyard on the day of the murders, Thorne and Patton are led to mysterious dealings on a Caribbean island. Also in the Bahamas is a DEA agent from Miami, who is searching for the origins of a huge gun shipment to the U.S. How his sleuthing ties in with Murphy and the woman in the photograph is revealed in a series of incendiary, startling scenes. The truth about the senator's past is hard to swallow, however, a flaw that diminishes the otherwise potent suspense. (July)