CASSIDY

by Morris West ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 17, 1986

West returns in fine shape with a quasi-political melodrama that shows the consistent talent of a great old pro. Herein West's recent leaning toward rhetoric is impacted into a single character, Charles Parnell Cassidy, a silver, tongued Irish leader in the State of New South Wales, who dies in the first chapter and whose golden gab is heard only in echoes. Cassidy, a charismatic politico, kept the Mafia, the Triads and all the international-crime cartels in the State in perfect running order by way of patronage, bribery, blackmail and extortion. Fifteen years earlier, Martin Gregory fell in love and eloped with Cassidy's daughter Pat--and Cassidy read them out of the family. But now he is dying of cancer and wants to make amends to his former sworn enemy and son in-law. The dying man names Martin his executor and gives him a case of microfiches as well as the combination to his big safe--after which Martin finds himself the target of all the crooked politicians and crime pins who know that Cassidy's safe contains extremely tidy documentation of all the dirty deals he's cut and with whom. Once Martin opens the safe and sees the contents (two kilos of heroin, bags of gems, pornographic pictures of various men Cassidy was blackmailing, etc.), he soon sees that his life is absolutely unsafe. He is also approached by Cassidy's longtime business associate Marius Melville, who wants to buy out Martin's interests as they are embodied in Cassidy's microfiches of his deals. Melville thrusts his own beautiful daughter upon Martin and has Martin's wife seduced by a Swiss ski instructor. Martin Finds himself in a deadly trap, created for him by the late Cassidy, all asmile in his grave. Tight plot, characters neatly chiseled and, compared with Ludlum, Follet and Sanders, toweringly well-styled.

Pub Date: Oct. 17, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986

Categories: FICTION