Memphis

From Memphis, a new political thriller by Mike Hambrick:

"J. Edgar Hoover was standing at his window looking down at Pennsylvania Ave. It was his favorite spot for thought. Clyde Tolson was sitting dutifully in front of the Director's desk. The two men - who between them wielded more power than the President and Vice President of the United States - had been keeping tabs on King since 1955. In recent years, that effort had recently increased dramatically to include wiretaps, 24-hour surveillance and monitoring. Hoover also had some of King's closest and most trusted members of his inner circle on the FBI payroll. They provided intelligence on King's every move. "Clyde, I don't think we're getting timely intel from the folks we are paying inside the SCLC," Hoover fumed. "The people we're paying are closest to King. We should be getting more out of them."

When Matt Harrison arrives in Memphis in 1966 to advance his broadcast career as a radio DJ, he finds himself inadvertently caught up in a web of intrigue. It began years earlier when J. Edgar Hoover compiled his infamous "prayer list" - targeting JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy for "removal."

Fresh from a small town in Texas, Matt's world is turned upside down on his very first day in Memphis when he's stopped by a redneck cop - setting off a terrifying chain of events that reaches from the highest corridors of power in Washington D.C. to the sordid world of the Dixie Mafia.

Set against the backdrop of the civil rights movement and the rich musical history of the Mississippi Delta, "Memphis" is a gripping political thriller torn from the headlines of the 1960's when America found itself on the precipice.