The Redhunter

the long version

From William F. Buckley Jr., comes an engrossing and unexpected historical novel about one of the most controversial figures in American political history - Senator Joe McCarthy. Senator McCarthy rose and fell in just four years, yet he gave a name, lastingly, to an era. It wasn't until February 9, 1950 in Wheeling, West Virginia, that McCarthy bewitched a nation - and unleashed a crusade - with his claim that Communists had infiltrated the United States government. In The Redhunter, a blend of fact and fiction, Buckley tells the story of Harry Bontecou. Freshly graduated from Columbia, Bontecou joins McCarthy and remains at his side for three critical years. But when McCarthy's judgment becomes clouded by prosecutorial zeal and reckless extravagance, Bontecou delivers an ultimatum: McCarthy must choose between Bontecou and Roy Cohn, McCarthy's ruthless aide. By then we have seen at close hand Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, J. Edgar Hoover, and Dean Acheson in memorable portraits of leaders in action.