Shelley's Heart

Charles McCarry

Published for the first time in Australia, this is arguably the best novel ever written about Washington, D.C.

The first presidential election of the twenty-first century has been stolen, after a bitter contest between two men who are implacable political rivals but lifelong personal friends.

The riveting events that follow turn on the power struggle between President Bedford Forrest ‘Frosty’ Lockwood, the new occupant of the White House, and his supposedly defeated rival, former President Franklin Mallory. In this vast, captivating novel, Washington’s high-powered world of enmity and friendship, and loyalty and cunning, is rendered with a unique, behind-the-scenes realism.

Shelley’s Heart is so gripping, even frightening, in its plausibility, that readers may have difficulty bearing in mind that this tale of love, murder, betrayal, and life-or-death struggles for the political soul of America is a work of the imagination rather than an act of prophecy.

Charles McCarry

Charles McCarry established an international reputation as a novelist in 1975, with the publication of his worldwide bestseller, The Tears of Autumn. He is the author of ten other critically acclaimed novels — The Miernik Dossier, The Secret Lovers, Old Boys, The Better Angels, The Last Supper, The Bride of the Wilderness, Second Sight, Shelley's Heart, Lucky Bastard, and Christopher's Ghosts — which have been translated into more than 20 languages. During the Cold War, he was a CIA officer operating under deep cover in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Since his resignation from the CIA, Charles McCarry has divided his time between the Berkshires and Florida's east coast.