White Widow by David August Waples

About the book

President Stewart Kraft is dead, apparently of natural causes, shortly before his reelection campaign. Shortly afterward, a U.S. congressman is murdered and dies with a secret in an envelope in his pocket. Because the president dragged his feet in nominating a new vice president to fill a recent vacancy, the speaker of the House takes power, eager to shape the White House in his image.

But Lorraine Kraft, the president's decorous widow, has other ideas. She appeals to the president's press secretary Nathaniel Freeman - a dashing former Navy college football quarterback -- to challenge the new president in the primaries. Despite his wife's sudden illness and desire to spend time with his young son, Freeman's ambition takes over.

Meanwhile, Sandra Sweet, a small town bicycle cop promoted to rookie detective investigates the congressman's murder, but is shut out by the FBI. Sweet forms an uneasy partnership with Carolyn McRue, an ex-prostitute now a political tabloid news reporter, to probe the murder. McRue exchanges sex for information with her sources, who mysteriously end up dead after the trysts.

During the primary campaign, terrorists seize a nuclear power plant in Cuba and vow to blow it up, threatening southern Florida. Freeman talks the terrorists out of their mission on live TV. But shortly afterward, an assassination attempt takes the wind out of the sails of his campaign. Losing the primaries, the campaign goes independent, throwing the election into chaos where the underworld attempts to influence the results.

McRue, once a love-struck student of Freeman when he taught at a local university, meets with a mysterious news source, who in tern, blackmails her. McRue is urged to use her past connection to entrap Freeman in a sex scandal or face exposure of her past as a hooker. Meanwhile, Detective Sweet investigates a woman who once brought allegations against the late President regarding an alcohol-related traffic fatality years before. The two brash, but inexperienced investigators begin a same-sex affair, and battle with the FBI to unveil who are the nation's enemies and who are its friends.

In the general election, no candidate receives a majority of Electoral Votes, but Mrs. Kraft makes a deal with the third place finisher to swing the needed support to their side. Just as Freeman must choose between his latent lust for power or his own integrity, an assassin guns him down. Sweet and McRue dramatically confront the killer -- Mrs. Kraft's female Secret Service agent and lover. Sweet is killed, but McRue's clandestine blackmailer -- a CIA agent trying to foil the traitorous forces behind the Freeman campaign -- saves the reporter's life.

An FBI investigator accuses Mrs. Kraft of blackmailing her late husband to name a mob-connected VP candidate. In a suicide note carried by the murdered congressman, the late President Kraft confessed to poisoning himself to avoid his legacy-ruining involvement in the long ago traffic fatality. He allowed his political nemesis to take power to keep the first lady and her mobster influences from the White House. Candidate Freeman turns up unhurt to save the day when Mrs. Kraft attempts to kill the FBI agent. When offered the presidency on a platter, the widowed Freeman only says he's going fishing with his son to keep a promise, and he invites the once starry-eyed McRue along.

About the author

David August Waples is a corporate communications manager for a northeastern natural gas utility. He earned a BA in Journalism (cum laude) from Utica College of Syracuse University and a MA in Communications from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania (selected outstanding graduate student in Speech and Communication Studies). He began his writing career as a news reporter, earning awards from the Associated Press, United Press International and National Public Radio for his spot news reporting for an all-news public radio station in Buffalo, N.Y. He also has experience as a government lobbyist and public relations manager, and has been awarded numerous honors for speech and public relations writing from the International Association of Business Communicators. He also teaches speech communication and public relations writing at two northwestern Pennsylvania colleges.

David is the author of three novels, as well as various nonfiction works including Approaching Infinity - A Practical Workbook to Achieve Your Goals in Life; Energy Pioneers - A Centennial History of National Fuel Gas Company; and Stepchild - The Birth and Rearing of the National Gas Industry in Western Pennsylvania and Western New York. His submission, "Piano Dreams," is a finalist in a proposed "Chicken Soup for the Divorced Soul" book. He is married and the father of four children. They live in Fairview, Pennsylvania, with their Chocolate Labrador named "Springsteen."