Talk about bipartisanship: The hero and sleuth of Jake Tapper’s mystery series is New York Republican congressman Charlie Marder, hardly a saint but smarter and morally superior to most of the Democrats (and Republicans) who surround him. OK, the time is 1962, and he’s an old-style “Rockefeller Republican” who pals around with colleagues and celebrities from both sides of the aisle. In “The Devil May Dance,” a sequel to “The Hellfire Club,” Marder’s pals are the infamous Rat Pack. Attorney General Robert Kennedy is blackmailing the congressman to infiltrate the group to learn whether Frank Sinatra’s mafia connections are working against his brother, who happens to be president and is about to make a visit to California.
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CNN anchor Tapper has done his homework, providing an 11-page list of sources at the end — including a 2016 Post-Gazette article by Rob Owen. The book’s title, however, is a Sinatra song entirely of the author’s invention.
In addition to “Chairman of the Board” Sinatra, who seems to lead the Rat Pack members and keep the others in awe and fear of his temper, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. figure prominently in the plot. Martin revels in demeaning racist jokes around Davis (who had been excluded from the Inauguration party less for the color of his skin than his daring to marry a white woman, actress Mae Britt), while John Wayne, Alfred Hitchcock, Shirley MacLaine and Janet Leigh add to the mix.
Slightly behind these luminaries is the British Peter Lawford, a Kennedy by marriage, depicted here as shallow and sycophantic, equally uneasy in the company of his actor colleagues as with his acquired American family. All the Kennedys, in fact, come off pretty badly in Tapper’s semi-fictitious account.
Then there are the mobsters, among them Sam Giancana and “Handsome” Johnny Roselli, and the menacing L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology, a movement then gaining momentum by recruiting many Hollywood hopefuls. Women are at the bottom of the food chain — treated like chattel whether they’re young starlets at Rat Pack parties, or favorites of the president himself — the notorious Judith Campbell or even Marilyn Monroe. The exception to this is Marder’s beautiful, highly intelligent wife Margaret, who joins her husband in sleuthing after the murders start to pile up and has the moral fiber to stand up to the scum around her. She’s a necessary adjunct but more a type than a convincing flesh-and-blood character. Even Marder is a detective story cliché, having resorted to alcoholism as a result of PTSD from his heroic actions in World War II.
The attorney general’s bargaining chip with Marder is the congressman’s elderly father, imprisoned in New York City’s infamous “The Tombs” for some genuine infractions that would otherwise have been overlooked. Charlie has already lost credibility by making a pact with union leaders during his reelection campaign — which he does not intend to keep.
Once in L.A., Charlie manages to stay clean at first, observing rather than participating in the salacious debauchery of the Rat Pack parties, while “advising” director John Frankenheimer on military accuracy during the filming of “The Manchurian Candidate.” Marder can remain uninvolved when a young actor who has competed with Sinatra for the affection of a budding starlet is found murdered, but later on when the starlet’s body turns up in the trunk of the Marders’ rented car, everything hits the fan.
Historical accuracy aside, Tapper’s plot is full of holes, starting with the absurdity of Bobby Kennedy blackmailing a Republican lawmaker to do his dirty work. It gets even sillier midway when Charlie and Margaret, separately, do something stupid that lands them in a life-threatening situation intended to be suspenseful from which they are extricated in ways that are even more implausible.
Even so, “The Devil May Dance” is fun to read, with Tapper’s takeoff on the 1962 Oscars a special guilty pleasure. Glibly written, simultaneous funny and horrifying, there’s just enough ring of truth to titillate our memories and make us want to learn more about the foibles of the rich and the famous as we turn the page hungrily at the end of every provocative chapter.
Robert Croan is a Post-Gazette Senior Editor.
First Published: June 17, 2021, 10:00 a.m.
