Assassination! July 14

July 14. One of Europe's most sinister terrorist organizations hatches a brilliant plan to assassinate the feared and powerful leader of France, President Charles de Gaulle. Max Palk, an extraordinarily talented British secret agent, is summoned to Paris to hunt down the assassins before it is too late. Ensnared in a terrifying web of doublecross and death, Palk races against the clock to outmaneuver, outshoot, and outthink his increasingly desperate foes.A decade before The Day of the Jackal appeared, Ben Abro's Assassination! July 14 became an international sensation, thanks to its sizzling plot, an ingenious, intellectual hero, and a realistic depiction of France's volatile political scene in the 1960s. In fact, the novel proved too real, provoking outrage and a lawsuit that shut down its publication. For the first time in decades, this gripping, underground thriller is again widely available. The equally riveting story behind the novel and the controversy it spawned are carefully explained in an informative essay by James D. Le Sueur. Drawing upon interviews with the authors, court transcripts, and recent evidence and scholarship, Le Sueur examines how an item of popular culture could have had such national and international repercussions.

Contents The Beginning Baraka Canine Kamikazes Max Mr. Palk Max Palk Max and Silesia The Minister The Forgotten Forecast The Prefect The Sentence That Never Was The Villains Boudin Bears a Barbouze The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, second edition How Odd of God Famous Last Words Tuesday, July the Tenth Wednesday, July the Eleventh Thursday, July the Twelfth Friday, July the Thirteenth Max Escapes by the Back The Setback Max Must See the Prefect The Telephone Call The Red Cross Max Goes Underground Jacobs among the Jackboots The Prefect Loses Some Sleep The Assassination Breakfast on the Fourteenth Max Puts on his Uniform Salute the Rostrum Assassination The End July the Sixteenth Before the Jackal: The International Uproar over Assassination!