Top Down

August 19, 2013
Lehrer (formerly the anchor of PBS’s NewsHour) draws upon his experiences as a reporter in Dallas on November 22, 1963, for this unusual take on the Kennedy assassination. His fictional alter ego in the novel, Dallas Tribune reporter Jack Gilmore, is at Love Field when the Kennedys arrive. Fact-checking his story, Jack asks a Secret Service agent if the president’s limousine will be traveling through Dallas with the plastic bubble top up or down. Since the top is intended only for use in the rain, and clear skies are expected, agent Van Walters indicates that it not be used. That reasonable choice (the top was neither bulletproof nor intended to protect Kennedy) naturally leads to feelings of profound guilt on Van’s part after the fatal shots are fired in Dealey Plaza. Five years later, Van’s 20-year-old daughter, Marti, asks for Jack’s help reversing her father’s depression, leading to a macabre reenactment in which the former agent tries to prove to himself that there’s nothing he could have done differently. Lehrer doesn’t say anything particularly profound here about the tragedy’s long-lasting aftereffects, but his premise does make for a refreshing change from the usual conspiracy thrillers about the J.F.K. assassination. Agent: Will Lippincott, Lippincott Massie McQuilken.

September 1, 2013
Who shot JFK? In longtime PBS stalwart Lehrer's novel, the question better becomes: How shot JFK? In a blend of police procedural and peek behind the curtains at how journalists do their jobs, Lehrer (Super, 2010, etc.) posits an uncomfortable scenario, at least for a beat reporter: A story returns, years after the fact, with a new and unforeseen wrinkle. In this instance, Dallas Tribune writer Jack Gilmore is going out to lunch--well, speaking before a lunch, anyway--on a strange twist to the assassination tale, relating how a request came from the copy desk for him to find out, before JFK's motorcade set out for Dealey Plaza, whether the top on his limousine would be up or down. Hmmm. It had been raining before, but now on this beautiful warm day--well, Gilmore asks, the agent in charge orders the top taken off, and the rest is history. Or is it? That agent has been a seething erosive mess of guilt ever since, and the Secret Service has done what it can to hide him in the hinterlands. His protofeminist daughter--for this is 1968--is meanwhile looking to answer the burning question of whether "the bubble top, if it had been there, might have prevented the assassination--or at least the death--of Kennedy." Well, weird things happen when a reporter's obsession matches a source's, and Lehrer expertly sails that particular sea. The writing sometimes seems a little tossed-off (" 'Food of the World'...seemed to mean Greek and Italian versions of scrambled eggs and toast"), but the way that Lehrer covers the ground (always skirting that "who" question) is fresh and convincing--and a couple of payoffs, including the longish denouement, come as a nice surprise. A footnote to the vast library surrounding the JFK assassination, but a good read nonetheless.

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September 15, 2013

Lehrer (former executive editor & anchor, NewsHour) has written ten times more fiction than nonfiction. This new entry increases the imbalance, but, as with his other novels, it's rooted in Lehrer's own life. In the "'Where Were You When You Heard?'" section of The Day Kennedy Died, above, Lehrer writes of his time as a Dallas Times Herald reporter assigned to cover the Kennedy arrival in the city. Lehrer asked the secret service agent there, Forrest Sorrels, in charge of the Dallas office, whether the Kennedy motorcade car would have its bubble top on. Upon hearing that downtown Dallas weather had cleared, Sorrels ordered the top removed. As Lehrer states in his "Author's Note" here, that episode formed the establishing circumstances for Top Down, which takes place five years after the assassination. Reporter Jack Gilmore is called upon to follow up about secret service agent Van Walters, who has blamed himself for Kennedy's death in an open car. This title will be most satisfying to those seeing some of Lehrer himself here: Will the reporter create a major news story, divulging the details of that agent's decision? Or will he hold off, aspiring to some brand of nobility? If he holds off, perhaps he'll get to write about it all in years to come, maybe in fictional terms. VERDICT Recommended to Lehrer's many fans and to all who are keen for the what-ifs that both reality and fiction can bestow.--MH

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2013
Lehrer has crafted a uniquely focused novel about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the ripple effect it had on both individuals and the nation as a whole. Utilizing his firsthand knowledge and experiencehe was actually a reporter in Dallas on November 22, 1963the author shifts away from the big-picture event in order to zero in on two seemingly minor players in the national tragedy. Five years after Kennedy's death, reporter Jack Gilmore is approached by Marti Walters, the daughter of former Secret Service Agent Van Walters, the man responsible for assessing the weather and making the decision on whether to keep the presidential limo's plastic bubble top up or down on that fateful day. Plagued by guilt and suffering from debilitating post-traumatic stress syndrome, Van is physically and psychologically on his last legs. In a race against time, Jack and Marti attempt to re-create the events of that day in order to prove to Van once and for all that he was not responsible for the president's death.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Fifty years after the assassination of JFK, the tragic events of that day still resonate with the nation. Lehrer's unique story-within-a-story approach provides a fresh fictional perspective that will appeal to readers who can never get enough Kennedy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)