Gate City

In the first volume of his award-nominated Henry Bell trilogy, author and lawyer Michael Davidow delivers both a tour-de-force of reportorial fiction and a profound exploration of morality and faith, all overlaid on the founding story of modern American politics: the victory of John F. Kennedy over Richard Nixon in 1960.Two advertising executives from Los Angeles get caught up in that year's election: Jack Mercer, native Hawaiian, wealthy and idealistic, and Henry Bell, Ohio-born, a professional fixer for the Rockefeller organization. Their superiors throw these men together to defeat a case of blackmail involving Nixon's finances. Mercer enters a nascent scheme to elect film star Ronald Reagan to the United States Congress, roping him even further into the shadowy world of California's money men. Bell roves from Canoga Park to Santa Monica to Chicago and beyond, with artists, surfers, and spies for company.And their actions are paced by a mysterious white paper from the RAND Corporation about game theory in the atomic age, which seems to be predicting their every move. Because Mercer and Bell are not just helping to elect Richard Nixon as president. They are chasing the delta velocity of history. And every man's history ends with his own death.Join these characters on their epic journey into the dark heart of America's past. GATE CITY: when you run out of choices, all that's left is the truth.