DEAD RECKONING

With this promising, well-written but overlong thriller, Cibrano adds to the canon of JFK assassination/conspiracy literature and introduces Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Tom Welles.

When an anonymous source contacts Welles and offers to provide hidden intelligence information, the journalist skeptically agrees. In stunningly quick fashion, Welles becomes convinced his correspondent, “John,” not only has insider knowledge about the death of John F. Kennedy–but was also a member of a secret spy organization that created a duplicate Lee Harvey Oswald. The purpose of the second Oswald was to enable the original to maneuver undetected through the intelligence and military communities for the purpose of killing the president. As Welles continues his clandestine meetings with John, he begins to unravel information based on the leaked material with the help of Earl, an old friend who happens to be a Washington, D.C., insider. But their efforts unfortunately draw unwanted attention, and minions of the spy group, operating on the command of folks at the highest level of government, begin to eliminate Welles’ sources and leads even as he begins to discover a complex web extending beyond the Kennedy assassination to the heart of the Cold War. In time-honored fashion, Welles’ race against an unseen enemy will compromise his personal and romantic life, but the characters are compellingly developed and the situations never seem comprised. Cibrano’s knowledge of the inner workings of espionage is fluidly convincing, and he writes with ease, intelligence and wit. At the same time, much of the tension and many of the twists are defused by his extreme attention to minutiae and agonizingly protracted scenes of one-on-one dialogue in recurring settings such as restaurants and bars. There is an abundance of material about the Kennedy murder in film, novels and online forums, indicating a tireless market; and Cibrano brings some fresh ideas to the genre.

An inventive thriller which could be streamlined through edits.