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, a talented British secret agent, is summoned to Paris to hunt down the assassins before it is too late. A decade before The Day of the Jackal appeared, Ben Abro’s Assassination! July 14 became an international sensation, thanks to its 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 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.