Paper Gods

July 30, 2018
Strong characters with very human flaws drive this taut story of political skullduggery from Taylor (The January Girl). When long-serving black Georgia congressman Ezra Hawkins is assassinated in the pulpit of his church, the search begins to find both his replacement and his killer. Atlanta’s black mayor, Victoria “Torie” Dodds, is Ezra’s protégé and the obvious candidate to succeed him, but the town’s white money, represented by a group called the League, has decided that they no longer favor Torie since Ezra let them down on a major transportation bill before Congress. Meanwhile, disgraced white reporter Hampton Bridges investigates the links between Torie and assorted major players, including the League’s Virgil Loudermilk, a political kingmaker. The tension rises as the special election for Ezra’s seat nears and more people die, including Torie’s brother, Chip, who was fired from his job at the mayor’s office after Hampton connected him to a drug lord. The only drawback to this crime thriller is that the political misconduct doesn’t astonish as much as it might in today’s real world of politics. 75,000-copy announced first printing. Agent: Laura Dail, Laura Dail Literary.

August 15, 2018
A behind-the-headlines thriller digs into power, money, race, and politics in Atlanta.Taylor (The January Girl, 2006, etc.), editor at large for the Daily Beast, brings her experiences as a political commentator, consultant, and journalist to this novel. It revolves around Victoria Dobbs, glamorous and ruthless mayor of Atlanta, and Hampton Bridges, an almost as ruthless political reporter barely hanging on to his career. The book begins with a bang, twice: first a suspicious car crash that almost kills Hampton, then a sniper attack at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s pastoral home, that leaves Victoria grazed but her mentor, U.S. Rep. Ezra Hawkins, dead. Despite her trauma, she immediately turns her considerable will toward running for Hawkins' congressional seat. She also grabs Hawkins' Bible and finds a tiny origami bird inside. Soon she'll find a second one, in the possession of another murder victim close to her. This does not scare her off; despite her upbringing among Atlanta's black elite, Victoria has a street fighter's instincts. She'll need them to go up against various power brokers in the city, black and white, on either side of the law. Hampton knows the murders are just part of the story, but he might not survive telling it. Taylor has the makings of a good political thriller, but she also deploys a huge amount of Atlanta history and political dish, so much that it can grind the novel's pace to a halt. She's good at status markers, like an inventory of Victoria's Birkin bags, but she can pile up so much descriptive detail it's distracting.A potentially explosive plot peopled with deliciously wicked characters gets bogged down in exposition and description.

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