Books in Brief: Dark Horse

Dark Horse, by Fletcher Knebel (Doubleday, 367 pp., $7.95). When the presidential candidate of a major party dies three weeks before Election Day, the kingmakers meet and select a dark horse: a commissioner of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. Eddie Quinn turns out to be the ultimate populist candidate; his top advisers are his uncle from Bee Branch, Arkansas, a college roommate now with the Rand Corporation, a black woman activist, a college radical and a congresswoman (with whom he Dallies). Eddie’s simplistic home-made platform (e.g., draft only men over fifty) turns his party against him, but he fights doggedly on. There are a few entertaining moments, but the plot is thin and the outcome unsurprising. The characters are too shadowy to be likeable or otherwise. Dark Horse is not likely to be the political suspense novel of this season.

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P. C. Simonds

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Presidential Election

Dark Horse, by Fletcher Knebel (Doubleday, 367 pp., $7.95). When the presidential candidate of a major party dies three weeks before Election Day, the kingmakers meet and select a dark horse: a commissioner of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. Eddie Quinn turns out to be the ultimate populist candidate; his top advisers are his uncle from Bee Branch, Arkansas, a college roommate now with the Rand Corporation, a black woman activist, a college radical and a congresswoman (with whom he Dallies). Eddie’s simplistic home-made platform (e.g., draft only men over fifty) turns his party against him, but he fights doggedly on. There are a few entertaining moments, but the plot is thin and the outcome unsurprising. The characters are too shadowy to be likeable or otherwise. Dark Horse is not likely to be the political suspense novel of this season.