The Promise of Joy — Allen Drury

A thriller in the series that began with #1 New York Times bestseller, “one of the finest and most gripping political novels of our era”(The New York Times).
 
The Advise and Consent series is a landmark of political fiction, displaying a depth of insider Washington knowledge and a canvas of compelling characters that catapulted each novel to the top of the bestseller lists. At the end of the previous novel, Preserve and Protect, Allen Drury left his readers with one of the greatest cliffhangers of all time. After an assassin's bullet rings out, we are left to wonder who was killed -- the Liberal Vice President Ted Jason, or staunch Conservative Presidential Candidate Orrin Knox? The answer to that question was so large that Pulitzer-Prize winner Drury had to write two novels, one exploring the full ramifications of each outcome. In The Promise of Joy, with his Vice President Ted Jason and his wife Beth Knox dead at the hands of an assassin, newly elected President Orrin Knox contends with a game of one-upmanship between the Soviet Union and China. The United States, guided by Knox's inflexible will, begins to assist rebels seeking to break away from their Communist overlords, despite mounting pressure from the international community and within the U.S. When nuclear war breaks out between Russia and China, President Orrin Knox, aided and opposed by the media, senators, congressmen, cabinet officials, ambassadors, and the people, must act to safeguard peace and democracy in America and the entire world.