The Saundra Gray Affair
A Novel of Politics
The Saundra Gray Affair is a political thriller about the personal costs of leading a public life.
Set in Washington, DC, Daniel Yager’s The Saundra Gray Affair is a tense thriller about political scandals and their personal costs.
When he was a teenager, J. D. was prone to standing up for his values, even when it wasn’t easy to do so. During a debate over the Civil War, for example, he refused to defend the Confederacy, earning his teacher’s ire and a reprimand. But his convictions were undermined by his early ambitions, romantic stumbles, and a brush with a career in music. By the time he reached Washington, DC, he was a centrist Democratic congressman, often more attuned to the leanings of his conservative Ohio district than he was to the ideologies shared by most in his party.
The novel’s intrigue roils around a missing intern, Saundra. When J. D.‘s longtime aide, Wally, dies by suicide, his suicide note raises questions around Saundra’s disappearance. Suspicion is cast on J. D. Indeed, though J. D. is focal, Wally’s voice carries much of the narrative weight, framing the uncertainty and moral ambiguity that follows. Other perspectives contribute to the tension, including those of a journalist, Isaiah, and an escort, Naomi. Saundra’s perspective is also included in brief; her absence has stronger implications than her presence, though. While the cast’s voices are alike in tone, their insights contrast, deepening understandings of J. D. and those around him. In time, Wally’s reliability as a narrator comes into question.
The prose is tight and purposeful with the exception of occasional didactic exchanges and discursions, as with a conversation between Wally and Saundra’s housemate about relationships and infidelity. Clearer are its considerations of the cost of public life, the opacity of private choices, and human contradictions. The inner workings of Washington, DC, where special interest groups and legislative bodies clash, center the story too. Police and media responses to missing people of color and those at the economic margins factor in when news outlets become infatuated with Saundra and J. D.‘s relationship; the notes of salaciousness, titillation, and speculation they introduce inform the story’s progression. The book moves toward a satisfying ending that brings the various narrative threads together while also proffering an element of surprise.
In the layered political thriller The Saundra Gray Affair, a woman’s disappearance spells trouble for a congressman who faces public suspicion and media scrutiny.
Reviewed by
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