The Hearing - Hardcover

Nobody does the thriller milieu better than Mills, who once again uses his skill as a magazine writer to bring complicated fictional scenes of crime, law, and politics to instant and completely credible life. When Alabama judge Gus Parham is nominated by the president--his old college friend--for an opening on the U.S. Supreme Court, it brings out of the woodwork everyone from a 13-year-old daughter he never knew he had to a vengeful Colombian drug dealer who can orchestrate more damage from behind prison bars than most villains on the outside. There's also a fascinating, complex character named Helen Bondell, who runs an alliance of public interest groups known as the Freedom Federation and who at first sees the nomination of moderate Southerner Parham as a bad idea. Bondell wants to keep Gus off the Supreme Court in the worst way--until she realizes that her supposed allies have much worse ways than she can imagine. Helped by a supportive president with some resourceful aides, a tough DEA agent friend, and Samantha, the delightful and courageous daughter suddenly thrust back into their lives, Gus and his wife Michelle resist all pressures to withdraw from the race and avoid a bloody Senate hearing. By making sure that every detail of motivation and landscape rings true, Mills keeps us captivated every inch of the way. Some of his memorable early works such as Panic in Needle Park and Report to the Commissioner, are out of print, but more recent books (Haywire and The Power) are available in paperback. --Dick Adler

A witty morality tale about the depraved events that can influence a controversial Supreme Court nomination is, wonderfully, about character. How can we know who is right for any job in Washington when everyone has a skeleton in the closet? Sleazy criminal lawyer John Harrington, who had unsuccessfully defended repulsively fat Colombian druglord Ernesto Vicaro, warns Gus Parnham, the federal judge who sent Vicaro to prison, that if Parnham accepts a nomination to the Supreme Court, terrible things might happen to the daughter Parnham never knew he had. It seems that when Parnham was attending Harvard Law, Michelle, the girl he eventually married, became pregnant with his child. Without telling him, Michelle chose adoption instead of an abortion. As far-fetched as this sounds, veteran thriller writer Mills (Haywire, 1995, etc. ) makes it work by reminding us that sometimes love means believing only what you want toand forgiving anything else. It takes Parnham's law enforcement buddy Carl Falco only a few days, ten thousand frequent flyer miles, and some comic viciousness to find the girl's nasty stepmother Doreen in Wisconsin and then to locate her kinder, gentler stepfather Larry Young, a cocktail pianist at a swank Saint-Tropez nightclub. Gus and Michelle successfully manage a teary reunion in France with biological daughter Samantha. Come what may, Gus accepts the nomination. Meanwhile, Harrington, aided by a murderous assassin supplied by Vicaro, the ruthless confirmation committee chairman Senator Eric Taeger (a live ringer for Bob Packwood), and the depraved ``subviolent'' spin doctors of the Freedom Federation, an utterly immoral ``social activist'' lobbying group, go after Parnham and company in public and in private. The story suffers credibility when an assassin's bomb almost blows up the Parnhams, but Samanthas testimony to defend her father brings it to a rousing climax. That innocence ultimately triumphs over guile is, perhaps, the only unbelievable element in this cooly constructed, smartly plotted Washington-insider novel. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.