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AN ELECTION YEAR THRILLER, AHEAD OF ITS TIME By TIMOTHY B. BENFORD
I spent some 14 years working in newspapers and magazines, and I can tell you the old cliché about every reporter or editor having an unfinished book manuscript tucked away, ready to be resumed again at the slightest flurry of literary inspiration is true. Okay, maybe not every reporter or editor, but certainly a large percentage of them. I’ll admit to being part of that tribe. The working title of a still unfinished novel I began in the 1970s, while managing editor of a travel magazine, is The Tandem Stones. It will eventually be finished and, hopefully, published. When that happens the framed jacket cover will join my more than a dozen other published books on the ‘vanity’ wall in our kitchen. But, being realistic, I have a few other book ideas in progress at the moment and two, perhaps three of them will be done first. [I have always worked with more than one manuscript in progress and switch back and forth when a train of thought gets cold]. The reason I don’t just finish The Tandem Stones manuscript now is two-fold. First, I still think the 250 pages already done make an excellent story in progress. But those pages were done on a manual Royal typewriter. To resume writing it now, I’d need to spend time scanning those pages into my computer, then re-read the work already done, and rewrite chunks I can improve on. The second reason is that I believe at least two of the other novels I have in progress are equally exciting. One is about the discovery of new evidence in the Kennedy assassination, while the other deals with the government cover-up of UFOs and alien abductions. The ongoing story lines for both are fresher in my mind and easier to move ahead with. The unorthodox approach I employed to get my first book published is another story for another time. That book was the nonfiction World War II Quiz & Fact Book. Since three publishers wanted it, the book went into a publishing auction. Harper & Row beat out Doubleday and Holt, Rinehart, Winston, and published in hard cover and 6x9 trade paperback size. I was feeling so good about having my first book fought over I dove into finishing my second book, the novel Hitler’s Daughter, in six weeks. It is an adventure-chase-thriller with a high body count. But you could also rate it as a mystery. Unfortunately, my agent at the time did not echo my enthusiasm. In patronizing tones he told me that writing a novel was a creative process, light years away and totally different from turning out a nonfiction book. He was also not very excited about what he considered my improbably story line, to wit: The prologue for Hitler’s Daughter opens in May, 1945, as a pregnant woman is spirited out of Nazi Germany and put aboard a U-boat departing from the Kriegsmarine (German navy) submarine base along the coast of St. Nazarre, France. I have always been a stickler for historical accuracy and knew that the D-Day invasion of Europe bypassed the St. Nazarre U-boat base. The story itself begins many years later in Washington, D.C., when a White House aide is given documents that suggest the child the woman gave birth to, after reaching America, was Adolf Hitler’s daughter. She is one of three powerful women near the center of American politics, and she wants to occupy The White House. The suspects are: Leona Crawford Gordon, a ruthless congresswoman who is a strong candidate to become the first woman vice president, or president, of the United States. Next is Susan Benedict, domineering wife of the likeable but somewhat wimpy incumbent vice president. He is widely favored to be his party’s nominee in the upcoming election. Finally, there is Sharon Franklin, an ambitious, cunning, attractive and nationally known TV anchor-woman. who is rumored to have been the bedmate of the Secretary of State. You will recall that this book was written two years before Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro was selected as Walter Mondale’s running mate. But in 1982 my agent thought the idea was pure fantasy. I wonder what his thoughts are now, with a woman in a tight race for the presidential nomination? To make a long story short, Hitler’s Daughter was published as an original mass-market paperback by Pinnacle books. It was compared by reviewers to the best efforts of Len Deighton, Ken Follett, and Robert Ludlum and won the West Coast Review of Books ‘Porgie Award’ as one of the three best original works of the year. The ‘Porgie’ led to a flurry of movie interest and, after two earlier film options over the years, it became the first novel ever picked up to be made into a USA Network Movie of The Week in 1990. I managed to get myself written into a walk-on part which, interestingly, was a character in a scene that doesn’t exist in my book! Seven years after its original publication, Hitler’s Daughter went back to press for the last time with Pinnacle Books in 1989, just before the movie came out. In 2000 a Print-on-Demand publisher offered to give all my out-of-print books second lives as 6x9 trade paperbacks for free! They were new and in the interest of credibility, wanted to quickly build an inventory of books. I gave them six of my titles, including Hitler’s Daughter. After all at “for free” the price was right. But wait, there’s more! When ebooks made their appearance, Hitler’s Daughter, along with four of my other works also became available as PDF format books which can be read on computers and various hand-held reading devices. And finally, in time for this election year summer reading, Hitler’s Daughter, my election year thriller has also been published by Amazon.com in their exclusive Kindle format. So the manuscript my first agent thought improbable, with a woman wanting to occupy The White House, remains alive and well, and perhaps quite timely, 26 years later. As is true with many books made into movies, the book is much, much better. ----
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