The President's Daughter » (Reissue)

Mariah Stewart is the award-winning author of the Last series: Last Look, Last Words, and Last Breath; the Truth series: Cold Truth, Hard Truth, Dark Truth, and Final Truth; and the Dead series: Dead Even, Dead Wrong, Dead Certain, and Dead End; as well as Until Dark and The President's Daughter. She is the recipient of both the Golden Leaf Award and the Award of Excellence presented by the Colorado Romance Writers, and has been a finalist for the Holt Medallion.

BLOODLINE

Dina McDermott is on top of the world. Attractive and independent at thirty, she runs her own business, funded by a generous inheritance. But an explosive chain of events will soon be set into motion—and her perfect life will spin out of control.

A journalist with a fearless instinct, Simon Keller believes he’s struck gold when he unearths an unsettling story about former president Graham Hayward, one that started with a secret affair and ended in tragedy. The trail leads Simon to Dina McDermott’s front door—and threatens to expose a parentage that would rock the political world. Shaken to her core by a shattering truth, Dina is suddenly thrust into the crosshairs of a cold-blooded killer—and on the run of her life.

Publishers Weekly

While writing a biography of Graham Hayward, the upright and highly regarded former president of the United States, journalist Simon Keller, the books rather colorless protagonist, comes across landscape designer Dina McDermott, who may be Haywards illegitimate daughter. The latter has grown up believing that Jude McDermott is her mother. Jude, torn between telling her daughter the truth and protecting her from it, is afraid that revealing her parentage may prove dangerous, especially since Dinas real mother, Blythe, was killed in a suspicious, unsolved hit-and-run years earlier. As Simon pieces together the events of the past, both he and Dina become the targets of people who will do anything to keep her true parentage a secret and the presidents reputation intact. Stewart (Voices Carry) occasionally interrupts her narrative with mundane details, describing everything from how Dina enters a room to the music preferences of her hired help. For the most part, however, the novel swings from one surprising twist and turn to another at a breath-catching clip. A satisfying political thriller marked by believable intrigue and a touch of romance, this book, though not on par with those of Lisa Gardner or Linda Howard, is a worthwhile read. (Aug. 2) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.