Richard Condon

First published in 1959, The Manchurian Candidate is Condon's riveting take on a little-known corner of the cold war, the almost sci-fi concept of American soldiers captured, brainwashed, and programmed by their Chinese captors to return to the states as unsuspected political assassins.

President Timothy Kegan is assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Philadelphia; a single shooter is caught and convicted. Fourteen years later, the slain President's brother, Nick, hears a deathbed confession that upends everything he thought he knew about his brother's death. In a desperate rush to find the real killer, Nick must navigate the murky waters of a conspiracy that involves the CIA, oil barons, the police force, movie stars, and people...

When his army unit is ambushed during the first Gulf War, Sergeant Raymond Shaw saves his fellow soldiers just as his commanding officer, Major Ben Marco, is knocked unconscious. Using the incident for political gain, Shaw eventually becomes a vice-presidential nominee, but Marco is haunted by dreams of what really happened in Iraq. As Marco investigates, the story begins to unravel. He begins to figure that the entire unit was kidnapped and brainwashed...