The People Game

Declan Shaw, a young Irish journalist, has seen more than his share of war-in North Africa in World War II and afterward in Palestine as witness to the birth of the State of Israel. In early 1950, he arrives in Washington, DC, to head up The Manchester Guardian's local bureau. Offering a European perspective on American politics, he covers the onset of the Korean War, the Cold War, the rise of McCarthyism, the nascent Civil Rights movement, and the presidential campaign of 1952. He also encounters many of Washington's most influential personalities, including Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, and a young, up-and-coming congressman named John F. Kennedy.

It's an unfamiliar world full of new people, most of whom hail from circumstances far different from his own, but Declan throws himself into reporting this new era. When he meets Tay Riggs, scion of an old Washington banking family, he begins to realize that the concept of the "American Dream" might one day include him too. In a twist of Homeric fate, he makes a decision that will change the course of his life forever.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a former Peace Corps volunteer and staff member who served in Tunisia. After careers in international service organizations and independent secondary schools, he became a writer. Jamie's work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. The People Game is the third novel in his Declan Shaw trilogy. He is also the author of an illustrated children's book and song, The Ballad of Poochie McVay.