Troubled Waters

Brooklyn attorney Cass Jameson (Mean Streak, etc.) confronts her past as a naive student radical in Wheat's examination of the many perversions that sprouted from the idealism of the 1960s. When Jan Gebhardt, who went underground in 1982 to avoid facing charges in the shooting death of a federal agent while she was transporting illegal aliens, finally gives herself up, Cass knows related charges against her own brother, Ron, a paraplegic Vietnam veteran, will soon be reinstated. She still feels guilty for involving her brother in a 1969 protest that cost him his conscientious objector status, but her discomfort is pushed aside when she learns that Jan and Ron have been in touch all these years. Through a series of flashbacks, Wheat reveals the group of radicals and what they were up to in the 1960s and 1980s: Dana Sobel, daughter of a crusading attorney, West Tannock, who later becomes governor with the aid of his old pal Paul Tarkanian; Jan Gebhardt and her younger cousin Kenny, a scientific genius the group needs and therefore tolerates; Joel Rapaport, the de facto leader always pushing those around him to go a little further; Ted Havlicek, Cass's boyfriend, who becomes a journalist; and Ron and Cass Jameson. Through a long hard look at the idealism of the 1960s and the gritty side of the 1980s sanctuary movement, Wheat spins a solid mystery regarding the murder of the federal agent. More impressively, she teases out the many quirks of character, the greed and weakness that inhabit even--perhaps especially--the hearts of those with the best of intentions. (Aug.)