THE PRESIDENT'S DOCTOR

Probably only in the commercially calculated novel will any presidential potential be found for some time to come and here Sophocles' ""pilot of the state. . .tongue-tied through some terror"" is George Rushton, pushing paranoia. He trusts no one -- not even his old friend Carter Fitzsimmons, just returned from Africa (China, Africa and of course the USSR are the obvious checkpoints); unless it might be a very dangerous military man, Ziffren, or his doctor, Thatcher. In between shootouts on the street, the sudden death and suddener cremation of an artist who was also Thatcher's dependent patient, bugs in the State Department and a national emergency declared (as well as a good many episodes in the sack) Carter guesses and finally establishes the real nature of the doctor's powers -- amphetamines. You keep wondering if they could cause phlebitis and then dismiss it all from your mind.