Jake Tapper On His New Book, 'The Hellfire Club'
The author's first novel, packed with conspiracies, takes place in 1954 Washington, D.C. "It was swampier back then—although it’s plenty swampy today."
The news is dominated by a demagogic blowhard, Capitol Hill is riven by partisan conflict, and noxious fumes waft from the Washington swamp. This is the suspiciously familiar setting for CNN host Jake Tapper’s just-released novel, The Hellfire Club, in which Republican newcomer Charlie Marder discovers there are things about how a bill becomes a law that aren’t taught in civics class.
The story is set in 1954, a year that saw both the end of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade and the handing down of the landmark decision by the Supreme Court, which ended segregation in the Jim Crow states of the South. It is Tapper’s first novel (in a rarity for
