Truth Like the Sun

A classic and hugely entertaining political novel, the cat-and-mouse story of urban intrigue in Seattle both in 1962, when Seattle hosted the World's Fair, and in 2001, after its transformation in the Microsoft gold rush.Larger than life, Roger Morgan was the mastermind behind the fair that made the city famous and is still a backstage power forty years later, when at the age of seventy he runs for mayor in hopes of restoring all of Seattle's former glory. Helen Gulanos, a reporter every bit as eager to make her mark, sees her assignment to investigate the events of 1962 become front-page news with Morgan's candidacy, and resolves to find out who he really is and where his power comes from: in 1962, a brash and excitable young promoter, greeting everyone from Elvis Presley to Lyndon Johnson, smooth-talking himself out of difficult situations, dipping in and out of secret card games; now, a beloved public figure with, it turns out, still-plentiful secrets. Wonderfully interwoven into this tale of the city of dreams are backroom deals, idealism and pragmatism, the best and worst ambitions, and all the aspirations that shape our communities and our lives.Amazon.com ReviewAmazon Best Books of the Month, April 2012: Told through dual timelines--the 1962 World’s Fair and a 2001 mayoral election--this is the story of a man and his city thinking big, striving for greatness … and making mistakes. Civic cheerleader Roger Morgan had been the driving force behind the construction of Seattle’s iconic Space Needle. Thirty-nine years later, Morgan, now 70, decides on a whim to run for mayor, which brings him face to face with a curious and tenacious reporter--and his own murky past. Author Jim Lynch is a former newspaper reporter who deftly captures the complicated relationship between an ambitious journalist and an ambitious public official, each of them flawed and haunted by the ghosts of past mistakes. --Neal ThompsonReviewA brilliantly disturbing dissection of political morality, where right and wrong are, like Seattle itself, blurred in a grey mist Daily Mail The parry and thrust between journalist and subject is expertly handled. The obvious cultural touch point for Lynch's novel is Citizen Kane, and as Helen searches for her Rosebud revelation, readers are confronted with the American obsession with ambition in all its tarnished glory -- Christian House Independent on Sunday Lynch observes like a journalist and writes like a poet Seattle Times * This novel is so very special. If you reach the last page without having laughed out loud, felt tears well up or at least once sat back in wonder at the extraordinary descriptions of the sea and its creatures, then you may, quite simply, be inhuman. Independent on Sunday on The Highest Tide