A Simple Choice

At the start of this fast-moving if contrivance-filled thriller from Pepper (The Voter File), Duke Barber, a longtime U.S. senator from Maine, parks his pickup at the base of a rocky hill topped by a historic lighthouse, the stage for his “most pivotal moments.” Barber walks up the hill and jumps off a cliff into the sea. Two days later, CNN newsman Palmer Knight is standing by the elderly senator’s abandoned pickup, wondering what happened to the missing man. Might he have slipped to his death—or was it a case of foul play? Meanwhile, former Supreme Court clerk Amity Jones, now working a low-level legal job in Mansfield, Ohio, explores a local medical mystery while caring for her seriously ill mother. Amity, whose boss had been a close friend of Barber’s, winds up joining Palmer’s investigation into the senator’s death. Too many hard-to-swallow twists—Amity is kidnapped and tortured at the direction of a Harvard doctor; Palmer gets his inside information from the U.S. president herself—strain credibility. As usual, Pepper finds a way to illuminate an issue not far from the political front burner. This effort, however, isn’t one of his best. Agent: Mitch Hoffman, Aaron M. Priest Literary. (Aug.)