Rate this book

Back Channel (2014)

by Stephen L. Carter(Favorite Author)

3.82 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0385349602 (ISBN13: 9780385349604)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Knopf

review 1: Back Channel refers to a series of secret negotiations that transpired while formal talks were held during the Cuban Missile Crisis. A Russian officer in the United States uses a 19 year old black college student as a conduit to President Kennedy. While I enjoyed the plot, there were several occasions where I felt author Carter could have tightened up the writing. His weakest link seems to be creating the dialogue of a 19 year old girl in 1962.
review 2: A very high 3. In Stephen Carter's implausible but entertaining thriller a 19-year-old black female Cornell University sophomore serves as a back channel carrying messages between Kennedy and Khrushchev during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. There's no real spoiler here; we know how things turned out. Carte... morer does a credible job of interweaving the actual chronology of events and his fictional events and actors. Margo Jenson, the channel of the title, is a nicely developed character and has an interesting back story. The book does leave a lot of loose ends - particularly in the form of a high body count which seems unnecessary to advance the plot, other than to illustrate the point that there were lots of bad guys around. I have enjoyed Carter' nonfiction (Integrity, Civility) in the past. I think I may give his fiction a bit of a go now. less

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