Sunday, January 12, 2014

It Happened At the World's Fair

In the process of achieving my personal goal of reading 80 books in 2013, one of my late qualifiers was Jim Lynch's Truth Like the Sun.  This is a highly-entertaining historical novel set in Seattle, bridging the 1962 World's Fair and post-millennial journalistic investigation of possible corruption involving some of the principals in the workings of the Fair, including a key figure who is running for mayor.

Lynch does a remarkable job with this.  Roger Morgan, the protagonist, spends time with Elvis and glad-hands any number of other numeraries, yet does have that off-side.

Decades later, as a candidate for mayor, Morgan takes it upon himself, to the annoyance of his campaign staff, to frequent many of the remaining gambling havens in town.  Why?

My interest in local history, politics, and urbanism led me to find this pretty compelling.

It's a bit more complex and cerebral than J.A. Jance, whose works I savor for some of the same reasons, but makes for a very entertaining read.