Truth Like the Sun

It is 1962, and the city of Seattle is about to be famous. Roger Morgan, an audacious young promoter, wants to pull off the ultimate coup de théâtre: the World's Fair, rising out of the downtown fog to show the whole nation that the future has arrived. In the run-up to the Fair's grand opening, Roger is everywhere at once - entertaining Elvis Presley and Lyndon Johnson, dipping in and out of secret card games and smooth-talking his way out of awkward financial questions - all under the haze of many a whiskey and the shadow of a looming crisis in Cuba. Roger dazzles everyone he meets, and is still a backstage power forty years later when, at the age of seventy, he makes a surprise bid for mayor. Helen Gulanos, a journalist new in town and keen to make her mark, sees her retrospectives on the 1962 Fair become front-page news as Roger's candidacy ignites the public imagination. She resolves to uncover the real Roger from behind the warm handshakes and glossy receptions - because even Seattle's golden boy must have something to hide. Woven into in this city of dreams is a cat-and-mouse-tale of back-room deals, idealism and pragmatism, the best and worst ambitions, and the aspirations that shape our communities and our lives. Hard-nosed yet profoundly humane, Truth Like the Sun is the most ambitious novel yet from the beloved author of The Highest Tide.