The Last Thing He Wanted

In her first novel in twelve years, the legendary author ofPlay It As It LaysandSlouching Toward Bethlehemtrains her eye on the far frontiers of the Monroe Doctrine, where history dissolves into conspiracy (Dallas in 1963, Iran Contra in 1984), and fashions a moral thriller as hypnotic and provacative as any by Joseph Conrad or Graham Greene. In that latter year Elena McMahon walks off the presidential campaign she has been covering for a major newspaper to do a favor for her father. Elena's father does deals. And it is while acting as his agent in one such deala deal that shortly goes spectacularly wrongthat she finds herself on an island where tourism has been superseded by arms dealing, covert action, and assassination.The Last Thing He Wantedis a tour de forcepersuasive in its detail, dazzling in its ambiguities, enchanting in its style.

Joan Didion was born in Sacramento, California. She has written four previous novels, five nonfiction books, and frequently contributes to The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>