A glitzy TV news anchor gets involved in a search for Albert Einstein's killer after her mentor, a cult novelist and connoisseur of conspiracy, tips her off to the alleged crime that occurred forty years earlier
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
First-novelist Gitlin draws on his expertise as media critic and recent historian (Vertical Hold, 1983; The Sixties, 1987) to produce this tough-talking, savvy, but finally wearying thriller- -featuring an aging blond TV correspondent, the Sixties icon who radicalized her, and their frantic search for the man who murdered Einstein. Her Filofax crammed with commitments for televised interviews with rock stars, on-screen tˆte-a-tˆtes with elder statesmen, and live wrap-ups on her own TV news-magazine show, In Depth, burnt-out reporter Margo Ross can barely keep her eyes open, much less remember the wild and political 60's life she left behind. Nevertheless, she's not surprised to hear the voice of Sixties novelist Harry Kramer, her hero and mentor back when she was just a gofer on a New York underground rag, growling about a possible conspiracy over her office telephone in 1992. Kramer, whose own career is on a downhill slide, has uncovered evidence that Albert Einstein was murdered, on his deathbed, with an overdose of speed. Who would want to kill the most brilliant man of our century--even if he was a pacifist and it was 1955--particularly when he was near death anyway? Hungry for hard news, Ross joins Kramer in tracking down the answer among Einstein's former colleagues at the Institute for Advanced Physics, at the New York home of Einstein's hawkish nemesis, Gustav Janousek, in old newspaper reports on Einstein's developing Unified Field Theory, and at the Lower East Side apartment of Norman Gottehrer, an aging crank who as a youth basked in the light of Einstein's kind attention. Running against an impossible deadline and forced to fight for control of her story with a ratings-obsessed boss and the network's mega-mogul owner-- who may be trying to protect some highly placed friends--Margo is run too ragged to realize who the real evildoer is. The conclusion comes as a satisfying surprise--though by then readers may be too exhausted by Ross's frantic, end-of-the-millennium lifestyle to care. A clever story, told at hyper-speed. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Hard-boiled, sarcastic Margo Ross, producer-reporter for a 60 Minutes -like TV news program, gets a tip from her ex-mentor, radical-chic novelist Harry Kramer, that high levels of amphetamine in the preserved brain of Albert Einstein indicate the physicist's death was a murder. The great pacifist socialist Jewish scientist, in this entertaining debut novel, had many enemies, including ex-Nazis, a hippie philosopher-poet who visited him on his deathbed, a courtly Viennese mathematician who knew him at Princeton and a sharp-tongued Czech physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and later pushed for America to nuke Vietnam. As Margo and Harry, who become lovers, plunge into investigating a possible crime hushed up for 37 years, Gitlin, a Berkeley professor and well-known social critic ( Inside Prime Time ; The Sixties ), serves up biting commentary on how television frames and decontextualizes reality to fit its format. He also provides an unusual perspective on the century that spawned the Bomb, technologically engineered genocide and modern physics' search for a grand unified theory. The story doesn't quite come off, however, either as a thriller, a novel of ideas or a satire of TV, and the anticlimactic, improbable ending leaves the reader feeling frustrated.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 3.95
Within U.S.A.
Shipping:
US$ 6.95
Within U.S.A.
Seller: Once Upon A Time Books, Siloam Springs, AR, U.S.A.
hardcover. Condition: USED_GOOD. This is a used book in good condition and may show some signs of use or wear . This is a used book in good condition and may show some signs of use or wear . Seller Inventory # mon0001224794
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: USED_VERYGOOD. No Jacket. Former library book; May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 1. Seller Inventory # G0374216177I4N10
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Dunaway Books, St. Louis, MO, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: USED_GOOD. Seller Inventory # 43991
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Books Do Furnish A Room, Durham, NC, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: UNSPECIFIED. First Edition. Pages are clean and binding is tight Price Clipped. Seller Inventory # 17193
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Old Algonquin Books, Arvada, CO, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: USED_FINE. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. The original printed price of $25 is clipped from front flap & a new sticker for $22 is affixed to the rear panel of the dust jacket. (the clipped price is still laid in book). Review copy with slip & PR sheet laid in Review slip says $22.00. Looks like the publisher couldn't decide which price to charge. Seller Inventory # 1847
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Irish Booksellers, Portland, ME, U.S.A.
Condition: USED_GOOD. SHIPS FROM USA. Used books have different signs of use and do not include supplemental materials such as CDs, Dvds, Access Codes, charts or any other extra material. All used books might have various degrees of writing, highliting and wear and tear and possibly be an ex-library with the usual stickers and stamps. Dust Jackets are not guaranteed and when still present, they will have various degrees of tear and damage. All images are Stock Photos, not of the actual item. book. Seller Inventory # 44-0374216177-G
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Open Vault Books, Mesa, AZ, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: USED_FINE. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1992, stated First Edition; no further state information. TV reporter researches forty-year-old crime. 297 pages. Condition: Fine: The spine is square with slight bumping on the heel, else the spine is clean. The front board is clean. The rear board is clean. The board edges are clean. The board corners are sharp. The ffep shows penciled state and price information in the upper right hand corner. The pages are white and unmarked. The page edges are clean. The book is tightly bound and unread. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good +: (Price clipped: $22.00 price sticker on rear of jacket: action taken by publisher for this book). The front shows slight pinching along the top edge and slight rubbing. The back shows a price sticker, some pinching along the top and bottom edges and some rubbing. The spine shows pinching along the bottom edge, pinching and a tiny nick on the top edge, else is clean. The front panel shows the price clipped, else the panel is clean. The back panel is clean. The jacket is enclosed in a new Mylar cover. This book will be shipped after receipt of payment in an archival bag and bubble wrapped in a new box with a USPS tracking number. International buyers: books heavier than one pound (including this one) will require additional shipping charges. Seller Inventory # HC125869
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Willis Monie-Books, ABAA, Cooperstown, NY, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: USED_VERYGOOD. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good-. Second Printing. Dustjacket is lightly rubbed and price clipped. Seller Inventory # 11536
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: zenosbooks, San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.
hardcover. Condition: UNSPECIFIED. 1st edition. Seller Inventory # z17320
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Monroe Street Books, Middlebury, VT, U.S.A.
Condition: USED_VERYGOOD. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Record # 7010. Seller Inventory # 7010
Quantity: 1 available