The Witch of Watergate - Softcover

Adler, Warren

Softcover

ISBN 10: 193130467X ISBN 13: 9781931304672

Publisher: Stonehouse Pr, 1992

Synopsis

Fiona FitzGerald, senator's daughter turned Washington, D.C., homicide detective, is called in to investigate a murder with explosive consequences on Capitol Hill. An infamous Washington Post reporter whose poison pen has destroyed many a politician's career is found hanging in her Watergate apartment. "The Witch of Watergate" is dead! Although suicide for this lonely and miserable woman seems the logical conclusion, Fiona is determined to find the truth.

The Witch of Watergate is the fifth book in Warren Adler's Fiona FitzGerald series. The first mystery, American Quartet, was on The New York Times list of top ten crime novels of the year. Try the other Fiona mysteries: American Quartet, American Sextet, Senator Love, Immaculate Deception, and The Ties That Bind.

About this title

From the Author:

How Fiona Fitzgerald Came to Be
It was the early eighties and the mass media consensus on gender was undergoing a massive change. Women were on the march and the emphasis was on both upward mobility and equality on all fronts, especially in the workplace.

In the culture of imaginative fiction, the concept of the heroic figure was being "genderized" and the notion of the female cop, soldier, firefighter, construction worker, and other jobs once considered male turf were swiftly disappearing.

Although I had never tackled the mystery genre before, which was growing in popularity, my then agent persuaded me to take the plunge. Since I lived in the metropolitan Washington area, I decided to use the police department that covered the nation's capitol as my venue. In casting around for a knowledgeable female who could give me some insight into the inner workings of the department and her own psyche, I was lucky to find an experienced female homicide detective, Judy Roberts, who led me deep into the entrails of the mindset and procedure of police work as seen through the female perspective.

Thus was born Fiona Fitzgerald, a brilliant young woman, working with the largely male dominated police force. Because I was familiar with the political and social circles of the power elite in Washington, I conceived the idea of Fiona working only on those cases that involved that segment of the Washington upper crust.

The first book in the series American Quartet, deals with a failed politician whose twisted mind conceives of the idea of staging a replication of the assassinations of our four American presidents. The year it was first released, The New York Times wrote that it was one of the most outstanding mystery books of the year. The series was born, although the background of Fiona was to undergo a profound change after the second book American Sextet was published.

In the first two books, Fiona's father was a New York cop and she had grown up in that city. But as with all of my books, the movie people beckoned and I found myself discussing film projects with a number of producers. One of them suggested to me that instead of making Fiona the daughter of a New York cop, it might be more interesting to make her the daughter of a prominent senator who had grown up in Washington.

The idea appealed to me for many reasons and I made the change, immersing her in a culture that I knew a great deal about. She was now ensconced in the heady precincts of elite Washington with many contacts in that world--social, political, and media--allowing me the opportunity to expand on all the possibilities inherent in that milieu.

In the books that followed, she was assigned to investigate murders that related to the power elite. Readers addicted to the series would unfortunately be confused by the sudden change of background from the daughter of a New York cop to the daughter of a prominent and late New York senator. I took the plunge and got few complaints.

A new publisher, founded by an experienced former executive of a major publishing company, decided to take on the series and I consented to move Fiona to his new company. This gave me the opportunity to fix Fiona's background in the first two books and make her uniformly the daughter of a senator. I rewrote parts of the first two books to fix this situation and saw in this new publisher a chance for Fiona to go on indefinitely solving murders among the players in the power structure.

Nevertheless, the books continue to be in play and there is some optimism that Fiona will be on her way to movie or television stardom. But until that happens, Fiona continues to enjoy a growing fan club among avid mystery readers.

About the Author:

Warren Adler’s twenty-five published novels have won popular and critical success all over the world, and they have been translated into more than thirty languages. Two of his books were made into major motion pictures, the classic “The War of the Roses” with Michael Douglas and “Random Hearts” with Harrison Ford. Three of his acclaimed short stories were adapted as a three-hour trilogy on PBS's American Playhouse titled, “The Sunset Gang.” Mr. Adler’s themes deal primarily with intimate human relationships – the mysterious nature of love and attraction, the fragile relationships between husbands and wives and parents and children, and the corrupting power of money. Readers and reviewers have cited his books for their insight and wisdom in presenting and deciphering the complexities of contemporary life. Warren Adler is arguably the only author in the world, published by major publishing houses, who has reacquired the English language and foreign rights to his entire backlist of 25 novels and set up a publishing company, Stonehouse Press, designed to distribute his backlist worldwide in all formats.

About this edition

• Publisher: Stonehouse Pr
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 193130467X
• ISBN 13: 9781931304672
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240