The Run

by Stuart Woods Narrated by Frank Muller

Overview

Will Lee, the hero of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Run Before the Wind and Grassroots, has finally established himself at the heart of American government as the respected Senator from his home state of Georgia.

The road to the White House, however, will be more treacherous - and deadly - than Will and his wife, Kate, an associate director in the Central Intelligence Agency, can imagine. A decent, courageous, and principled man, Will soon learns he has more than one opponent with whom he must contend. Thrust into the national spotlight as never before, he becomes the target of clandestine forces from the past who will use all their money and influence to stop him - dead - in his tracks. Now Will isn't just running for president...he's running for his life.

Filled with all the suspense and roller coaster plot twists that have become Stuart Wood's trademark, The Run is this master storyteller at his best.

Editorial Reviews

bn.com

As I've mentioned before, Stuart Woods started his career at the top. Not necessarily in terms of sales or recognition, but certainly in terms of ambition and achievement.

Chiefs, a murder story that spans three generations in the American South, is just about as good as crime fiction gets. I can't think of another historical crime novelist, in fact, who takes the chances Woods does with this one. And he pulls them off.

In some ways, Woods's latest novel, The Run, returns to his roots, involving as it does the Lee family of both Run Before the Wind and Grass Roots. If this novel doesn't have the depth of the former or the sheer brute passion of the latter, it is nonetheless a quick, clever, and shrewd take on our political system involving a vice president with Alzheimer's and a comatose president. Not exactly a slow news day.

Our hero, and the man who must decide how to steer a course through these turbulent and muddy waters, is Senator Will Lee, who wants to be president himself. He has some tough decisions to make. Woods is particularly good at showing us the mixture of ego, cunning, and fear that goes into making the kind of decision that can end a political career if the least thing goes wrong. Talk about night sweats.

Woods has spent the last several years writing popcorn thrillers of a very high order. Lots of cliffhangers, lots of glitz, lots of derring-do. If you think making these things work is easy, try it sometime. Woods is an adroit craftsman.

The Run combines some of the dark introspection of Grass Roots with the dash of the recent thrillers. The fusion is a fetching one; it turns into one hell of a good read, and a very serious look at the fragile state of our political system now that it has been turned over to consultants and talking heads.

A very enjoyable and accomplished book.

—Ed Gorman

Boston Globe

He tells a terrific yarn.

Chicago Tribune

Woods is a no-nonsense, slam-bang storyteller.

Barnes & Noble Guide to New Fiction

From best-selling author Woods, comes a "lively political potboiler" featuring a presidential hopeful, a web of "venal politicians, cult crazies, and moral conundrums, all pitched at the reader with masterful timing." "A perfect election-year beach read." A sole dissenting reviewer called it a "good read, but doesn't quite reach the boiling point."

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

If at times a bit unbelievable, Wood's account of an idealistic politician's presidential campaign moves quickly and provides readers with many intriguing plot twists. By unusual circumstance, Will Lee, a well-respected senator from Georgia, is thrown into a run for the United States presidency. Though Will remains courageously true to his principles as campaign staffers cobble together his strategy, the path to the presidency proves fraught with difficulties and danger. For, in addition to unscrupulous political adversaries, Will must contend with an affair from 10 years past and an assassin from a right-wing militia group. Howard fluctuates between reading the story straight and acting out its characters. This is not a problem, however, as his pacing is superb and his deep voice is the perfect timbre for this suspenseful tale. Simultaneous release with the HarperCollins hardcover (Forecasts, Apr. 24). (June) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

From Chiefs to Grass Roots to The Run: popular Woods protagonist Sen. Will Lee gets ready for the presidency. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\
—Thomas Davis, Arizona State University, Tempe

Kirkus Reviews

Woods, most often seen recently in the company of lawyer/sleuth/adventurer Stone Barrington (Worst Fears Realized, 1999, etc.), pushes the scion of the Lee family (Grass Roots, 1990 paperback) into a run for the presidency. It happens like this: Vice President Joseph Adams, the presumptive Democratic nominee, secretly tells Georgia Senator William Henry Lee IV that he's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and plans to withdraw from the race in Will's favor, if only the senator will run. Will agrees—but before he can announce, a stroke sends the sitting president into a coma and Joe Adams into the White House as an acting president determined not to endorse anybody till after the conventions. But even before you realize that Woods's juicy premise was nothing but an excuse to get his principled hero into a national race despite his scruples, the subplots have started to kick in. A former mole put away by Will's wife Kate, CIA deputy director, offers his secret support in return for a forthcoming presidential pardon. A conservative South Carolina Republican begins a smear campaign designed to insure that Sen. George Kiel takes the nomination away from Will so that he can lose the election to the GOP. A long-buried scandal from Will's past erupts when he refuses the request of his onetime lover, movie star Charlene Joiner, to file a Death Row appeal on behalf of a murderous rapist he unsuccessfully defended, and the rapist accuses him of incompetence. Even if Will gets past all the obstacles Woods has strewn in his path, there's still the survivalist who tried to kill him years ago, and is happy to try again. The result is the most unnuanced, evenclueless,political thriller you'll read all year. On the plus side, Woods's trademark characters, unsurprising and banal, fit perfectly into their roles as political candidates and advisors. Maybe there's some insight here after all.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170382378
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/18/2007
Series:	Will Lee Series , #5
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

United States Senator William Henry Lee IV and his wife, Katharine Rule Lee, drove away from their Georgetown house in their Chevrolet Suburban early on a December morning. There was the promise of snow in the air.

Kate sipped coffee from an insulated mug and yawned. "Tell me again why we drive this enormous fucking car," she said.

Will laughed. "I keep forgetting you're not a politician," he said. "We drive it because it is, by my reckoning, the least offensive motor vehicle manufactured in the state of Georgia, and because Georgia car workers and their union have shown the great wisdom to support your husband's candidacy in two elections."

"Oh," she said. "Now I remember."

"Good. I'm glad I won't have to put you in a home right before Christmas." He looked in the rearview mirror and saw another Suburban following them. "They're there," he said.

"They're supposed to be."

"How did they know?"

"Because I called them last night and gave them our schedule."

The week before there had been a terrorist attack on CIA employees as they had left the Agency's building in McLean, Virginia, and certain Agency officials had been given personal protection for a time; Kate Rule was the deputy director for intelligence, chief of all the CIA's analysts, and was, therefore, entitled.

"Oh," Will replied, sipping his own coffee and heading north toward College Park, Maryland, and its airport. "They're not going to follow us all the way to Georgia, are they?"

"I persuaded them that wouldn't be necessary."

"Good."

"It's a little like having Secret Service protection, isn't it?" she nudged. "Doesit make you feel presidential?"

"Nothing is going to make me feel presidential, at least for another nine years."

"What about the cabinet? If Joe Adams is elected and wants you for Defense or State or something, will you leave the Senate?"

Joseph Adams was vice president of the United States and the way-out-in-front leader for the Democratic Party's nomination for president the following year. "Joe and I have already talked about that. He says I can have anything I want, but he doesn't really mean it."

"I always thought Joe was a pretty sincere guy," Kate said.

"Oh, he is, and he was sincere with the half-dozen other guys he told the same thing. But I don't really have the foreign-policy credentials for State, and while I think I really could have Defense, I don't want it. I don't want to spend eight or even four years doing battle with both the military and Congress; the job killed James Forrestal and Les Aspin, and it's ground up a lot of others."

"What about Justice? Your work on the Senate Judiciary Committee should stand you in good stead for that."

"I think I could have Justice, if I were willing to fight for it tooth and nail, and there's a real opportunity to do some good work there."

"Well?"

"I think I'll stay in the Senate. Georgia's got a Republican governor at the moment, and if I left, he'd get to appoint my replacement, and we don't want that. Also, if Joe's elected, three or four top senators will leave to join the administration, among them the minority leader, and I'd have a real good shot at that job. And if we can win the Senate back, then the job would be majority leader, and that is very inviting."

"It's the kind of job you could keep for the rest of your career," she said.

"It is."

"But you don't want to spend the rest of your career in the Senate, do you?"

"You know I love the Senate."

"Will, you've been awfully closemouthed about this, but I know damned well you want to be president."

"One of these days, sure," Will replied.

"You mean after Joe has served for eight years?"

"I'd only be fifty-seven. Why not? I might even appoint you director of Central Intelligence."

"Yeah, sure," she said. "The world would fall on you."

"If Jack Kennedy could appoint Bobby attorney general, why couldn't I appoint my wife to be head of the CIA?"

"Well, it's a nice thought, anyway," she said.

"Listen, here's a thought; Joe's going to owe me after the election, and if I'm not going to ask him for a cabinet job, I could ask him to appoint you DCI."

"Would you really do that?"

"Let's just say that I know the candidate well and have the highest confidence in her. It's not as though you're not supremely well qualified."

"Mmmmm. I like the sound of it."

"Of course, I'd want my back scratched a lot if I pull this off, and I mean that in the literal, not the figurative sense."

"I'll start growing my nails now." She laughed.

"Promises, promises."

"I think about it sometimes," she said.

"Scratching my back? Less thought, more action!"

"No, I mean your being president."

"And what do you think when you think about it?"

"Mostly about what a huge pain in the ass being first lady would be."

"Oh, it might have its upside—weekends at Camp David, travel on Air Force One, that sort of thing."

"I'd have to make a lot of speeches, and you know how I hate doing that."

"Well, how about this? If Joe has already appointed you DCI, I could reappoint you. Then I could hire a first lady."

"Just run an ad, you mean?"

"Why not?"

"Well, I must admit, the idea of being appointed and then reappointed has its appeal, but the substitute wife doesn't."

"I'm glad to hear it." Will turned into the entrance of the little airport at College Park, which had been founded by the Wright Brothers and was located on the grounds of the University of Maryland. He drove down the taxiway to where his airplane was tied down, got out of the car, and unlocked the cabin door. The airplane was new, a Piper Malibu-Mirage, a six-seat, pressurized single-engine aircraft, loaded with the latest equipment. Will had traded his elderly Cessna for it a couple of months before, and it made trips back to Georgia a lot faster and more comfortable.

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