Libra: Don Delillo: 83 (Penguin Essentials, 83)

''Think of two parallel lines. One is the life of Lee H. Oswald. One is the conspiracy to kill the President. What bridges the space between them? What makes a connection inevitable? There is a third line. It comes out of dreams, visions, intuitions, prayers, out of the deepest levels of the self.''

A troubled adolescent endlessly riding New York''s subway cars, Lee Harvey Oswald enters adulthood believing himself to be an agent of history. This makes him fair game to a pair of discontented CIA operatives convinced that a failed attempt on the life of the US president will force the nation to tackle the threat of communism head on.

Libra is a gripping, masterful blend of fact and fiction, laying bare the wounded American psyche and the dark events that still torment it.

''An audacious blend of fiction and fact'' The Times