The Solomon Scandals

This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Buy on Amazon Buy on BN.com Buy on Bookshop.org
*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app

1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Nov 01 2023 | Archive Date Jan 05 2024

Talking about this book? Use #TheSolomonScandals #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!


Description

The Solomon Scandals is a provocative Washington suspense novel inspired by now-forgotten history. A deadly high-rise collapse happened in Northern Virginia, and a U.S. senator and a Supreme Court Justice held stakes in a CIA-occupied building.

In the novel, an audacious reporter for a crooked newspaper investigates the darker side of a popular real estate tycoon. One of the tycoon’s rickety buildings houses hundreds of workers for a shadowy bureaucracy. The reporter’s incendiary discoveries compel him to hide his related memoir for a century to shield those on the scandals’ fringes.

David H. Rothman's complex tale teems with memorable characters (some caught up in a classic Washington dilemma—friendship vs. duty):

—Seymour "Sy" Solomon, the folksy, self-made real estate magnate, buys politicians but does so with far more class than the typical business buccaneer.

—George McWilliams is a mysterious editor wealthy enough to have built a mini Versailles.

—Wendy Blevin is a powerful but inwardly fragile gossip columnist from an Old Money family that has already suffered its share of tragedies.

—Margo Danialson, B.A. in medieval studies, is unhappily tethered to a corrupt federal agency.

—Dr. Rebecca Kitiona-Fenton, a multiracial feminist, outspokenly annotates the newspaper memoirs of her white great-granduncle, Jonathan Stone.

The second edition of Scandals contains a revealing essay on historical connections, underscoring David H. Rothman’s reporting leading to a Congressional investigation and NBC and ABC exposés. Supreme Court ethics controversies make Scandals especially timely.

Rothman’s inventive story blends history, ethics, and intrigue. His style is hardboiled and often satirical. Although Scandals includes strong language and some sexist and racist dialogue, Dr. Kitiona-Fenton’s endnotes provide additional context in the second edition.

Ted Scheinman, reviewing Rothman's first edition for the Washington City Paper, wrote: "We get to relish his chatty first-person narrator spinning characterizations of D.C. with the same dark zeal Hammett held for Frisco or Chandler had for Los Angeles.”

The Solomon Scandals is a provocative Washington suspense novel inspired by now-forgotten history. A deadly high-rise collapse happened in Northern Virginia, and a U.S. senator and a Supreme Court...


Advance Praise

Kirkus Reviews says Scandals "captures the aura of dark nihilism in some quarters of the political world with great power … This is a riveting work, mordantly insightful and surprisingly entertaining.”

"Captures the aura of dark nihilism in some quarters of the political world with great power … This is a riveting work, mordantly insightful and surprisingly entertaining.” - Kirkus Reviews (on the second edition). 

“We get to relish his chatty first-person narrator spinning characterizations of D.C. with the same dark zeal Hammett held for Frisco or Chandler had for Los Angeles.” - Ted Scheinman, Washington City Paper.

Kirkus Reviews says Scandals "captures the aura of dark nihilism in some quarters of the political world with great power … This is a riveting work, mordantly insightful and surprisingly...


Available Editions

ISBN 9798985181845
PRICE $2.99 (USD)
PAGES 368

Available on NetGalley

NetGalley Shelf App (EPUB)
Send to Kindle (EPUB)
Download (EPUB)

Average rating from 1 member