WASHINGTON BOOK NOTES KNEBEL'S LATEST A POLITICAL THRILLER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200740021-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 20, 2004
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: January 7, 1968
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2005022' DP88-0135OR00.0200740021-0
1/1
By BONNIE AIRMAN
Star Staff Writer
VANISI ED. By Mother Kne-
bel. Doubleday & Co- 407
pages. $5.95.
Flo tcher Knebel's years of
po:ideal reporting in Washing-
ton have equipped him with a
profound knowledge of the
workings of our democracy.
But no such in-
sider-turned-author could have
achieved his mastery of
fictional microcosm without
the special gift of a creative
insight.
"V anishea,"hisseventh
novel (fourth without the. Col.
laboration of Charles Bailey
II) was published Friday by
Doubleday, and before the
New Year's glow has dimity.
ished the event should trigger
a reshuffling of those recently
moribund best-seller lists.
"Vani,~hodll lei fine of the r1169t
powerfully told and realistic
poiitical suspense thrillers to
appear in years. The book will
surely equal, if not surpass,
the popular impact of the 1962
Knebel-Bailey hit, "S e v e n
Days in May."
The story is complex. Two
months before a presidential
election a leading Washington
-Thomna MrQarrh
FLETCHER Kl'v'IIIEI,
attorney and e16sd friend of
the chief executive vanishes
from the golf course of the
Burning Tree Country Club. At
first, personal and public mys-
tification is complete. Stephen
Greer was known as a man of
impeccable character, though
not without infrequent, if
harmless, flights of eccentrici-
ty. But sinister clues begin to
o - n o
i.l ,~7 r c7 ~, i' rq Ij I
emerge which c, inplica. I' cbcl In the surprising de-
tions in several si dous di nouncmcnt.)
rcctions - embez lent, de- The characterizations
fection, a homose- iaison.
Before the week hopes
for a landslide vics~i: ~r for
PresIdent Roudebush are
placed in serious jeopardy and
the panic is on.
throughout are superbly
drawn - President Roudebush
is a towering figure combining
the steel of a Johnson with the
earthy charm of an Eisenhow-
er. Crack FBI agent Larry
Slorm is -a sensitive Negro
Mr. Knebel dissects the me- who compromises his position
chanism of official Washington for a higher loyalty. Dave
and lays it bare before the Paulick is the yarn's bulldog
reader. An aroused press be- newsman who comes within a
gins a marathon siege on the day's deadline of breaking the
office of the White House top story of Ills career, only to.
press secretary. The portrait drop from public view himself.
of honest, indefatigable Gene Through it all, the narrative
Culligan, who tells his own sto- pace and the clarity of the plot
ry in an otherwise third-person never diminish. Knebel man.
narrative, is a sympathetic ages to keep a thread of one
rendering of that difficult job, sequence taut in the mind of
Culligan is baffled by the the reader while picking up
President's decision to deny another, and another.
him fCbd?0 to tho F.I P6 l'Om There is lithe humor to thl#
ports on the case. The FBI i.n novel, and only a token'
turn is frustrated by an execu- amount of sex and romance,,
tive order seriously hampering Even Gene Culligan's affair
its normal investigative proce- with his secretary takes a so.:
dures' Worse off is the CIA, /bcr turn when the liaison leads.
whose director bristles under to a major revelation in the'
a stern "hands-off" command Greer case. But that lack, If it
from Roudebush. (The novel's ' be one, will - surely be met
unflattering view of that su- when Hollywood, inevitably, i?
per-secred organization i s puts .its celluloid ' imprint on.
gleefully nailed down by Mr. 'Vanished.
STAT
Approved For Release 2005/08/22 : CIA-RDP88-01350R000200740021-0