A Lady, a Peacemaker

Less novel than tract, less character evocation than canonization, this final volume of an inspirational trilogy (A Lady, A Champion; A Lady, A Healer) about Angela Weber Bryant, the fictional first woman president, ends in the year 2007 with her grandson Curt Bryant conducting a famed Russian doctor on a memorial tour of her birthplace, Sandusky, Ohio. Here Angela, a 1936 Olympic medalist, was born and has been laid to rest, her indomitable spirit hovering over the school, the hospital, the museum and the park built in her honor. In this episode of the saga, she appears initially at 60, the chic golden-haired Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the Nixon administration, chairman of the Olympic Games Committee and soon to be named Secretary of Defense by President Reagan. Who better, asks the author, than this tireless Christian to harness the horses of war and send them galloping toward world peace? Although wounded by a terrorist's bullet at the Korean Olympiad, Angela runs with the torch and lights the flame before collapsing. For her courage, vision and diplomatic skills, she is drafted at age 72 to run for president. Her overwhelming victory allows her to take steps to cancel the threat of nuclear war. Not for those of little faith, this woodenly written novel may nonetheless give pleasure to eager suspenders of disbelief. (February 4)