Talk about a being in a precarious predicament. Senator Andrew Foster is being considered
for the vice presidency at the very time he's made the most serious blunder of his long and
illustrious career. Foster's mistress was brutally slain while the senator lay unconscious on
the bedroom floor of their little love nest. Obviously, if he is linked to the murder victim
in any manner, Foster's aspirations to be "just a heart beat away" from the presidency will be
ended, along with his marriage and political career.
When an anonymous phone call lets the senator know that the entire sordid affair that
culminated in the woman's death was captured on tape, he realizes he must do something pretty
drastic to salvage the volatile situation. It gets extremely complicated, though, when the
blackmailers find the tables turned and the person they hired to do the taping is now holding
the "evidence" for ransom.
We have already seen what can happen to a real life politicians like John Edwards or Eliot
Spitzer when their infidelities are revealed. But their situations never spun so completely out
of control as what happens to this fictional character.
Richard Hawke creates a scenario that dramatizes the interplay between power politics and
salacious behavior and the interesting outcomes that can result. Obviously, none of them are
good, but House of Secrets puts a wild spin on the how the politician handles damage
control and also how his jilted wife responds.