Margaret Truman, Murder at Union Station

Murder at Union Station

Margaret Truman

Ballantine, Oct 2004, $24.95,, 336 pp.

ISBN: 0345444906

Writer Richard Marienthal's first book is a true crime expos that made it to press only because former hitman Louis Russo, now a government informant hidden within the witness protection program, gave him the information he needed; the book is almost a biography of Russo only. Russo has agreed to return from hiding in Tel Aviv to promote Marienthal's debut effort.

However, besides Marienthal waiting to meet Russo at DC's historical Union Station, someone else looks forward to greeting the aging, retired mobster. That other greeter kills Russo. As the FBI, CIA, and local police investigate, Marienthal wonders whether this was a mob hit or something more devious as Russo had exposed an overseas operation he took care of for capital higher ups. The writer's musings turn personal with the epiphany that his book places in peril his fianc e Kathryn Jalick and those helping him bring it to publication, but also feels trapped as it is too late to turn back the hands of time as his beloved desperately wanted to happen as she saw the ruthless publishing worldseduce him with money, adulation, and fame.

MURDER AT UNION STATION is a strong Capital Crimes who-done-it with conspiratorial elements that make for quite a tale as Richard finds his life spinning out of control just when he is on the brink of success. He makes the tale work as he goes from euphoric to concern to panic in a realistic manner. The support cast either spotlights Richard's conversion from Lady Macbeth level of ambition to dread of what he wrought onto loved ones and friends or furbish a deep look at the city. Margaret Truman does Washington like no one else.

Harriet Klausner