The Late Senator Devereaux

When Cole A. Devereaux, the senior United States Senator from South Carolina and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, dies in an airplane crash in the northeastern part of the state in June, 1997, his wife, Elinor, is appointed to fill out the remainder of his term. Once embarked upon her new responsibilities, she becomes aware that her husband had had a far closer relationship with the Chinese government than she had appreciated heretofore, and, indeed, comes to suspect that he may have been blackmailed into doing their bidding, perhaps even placing one of their agents on the committee's staff. While not wanting to sully her husband's memory or jeopardize her chances of running for his seat in her own right at the next election, she concludes she has no alternative but to report her suspicions to the committee. The Late Senator Devereaux is a novel that uniquely combines life in the Senate with a spy story. It is also about how things that come to light about people after their death can affect the perceptions and feelings of the family and friends they leave behind.