At a time of national controversy concerning the impeachment and upcoming removal trial of President Clinton, I thought that I had stumbled upon political suspense novel at an ironic time. After hours of reading and viewing political talk shows, I know more about my government and it’s operation than I did while attending both high school and college. I love history. I love the political process, although I’m highly cynical and skeptical, I am captivated by it. I also love soap operas, and politics is, by far, the ultimate soap opera. There’s power plays, money handling, backstabbing, lying, blackmail and sex. All in the notion of being the welfare of a people. The Young and the Restless has nothing on Washington D.C.. With much anticipation, I began reading Excalibur’s Defeat: A Criminal In The White House by William Wright. I did get the romance, intrigue, and the "run-for-your-life" suspense.

The novel has a heroine, Dana Filmore, a beautiful African-American woman, who is the first female and first black to hold the office of Secretary of State. The novel has a hero. His name is Kasi Martin, the District Attorney of Washington D.C., a black single man who is looking for his perfect mate. Of course, the novel has a villain. President Wallace, who upon learning that his evil transaction of buying arms from a Soviet nation with confiscated drug money is about to be exposed, decides to kill anyone that gets in his way, including his Secretary of State.

Dana Filmore’s life is endangered because she becomes aware of President Wallace’s illegal transactions. She does not know who to trust. Dana first thinks of the young black district attorney, Kasi Martin, so she manages to meet him and eventually the two fall in love. However, the couple is now on the run. The president wants them dead. Along with a number of sub-plots and supporting characters, will Dana and Kasi survive to tell the world of the president’s evil deeds? Will Dana and Kasi find true love?

I had a number of problems with this novel. Many stem from the fact that in reality, these situations would not have existed. In many ways I felt that Wright succeeded in the interactions between his characters. The subplot concerning Mary, Kasi’s secretary, and her attempt in finding a "good man". Actually, I liked Mary best of all the characters. The mother of two children, divorced from an abusive man, overweight, she decides to take control of her life and finds herself in a budding mature relationship. Another subplot concerning Jene, a woman that Kasi stopped seeing before his involvement with Dana, was also interesting, but one I felt had an unsatisfactory resolve. The main romantic plot with Dana and Kasi was nice. It didn’t set the world on fire, but it was nice.

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