The Better Angels

The Better Angels is a 1979 thriller novel by Charles McCarry. It was poorly received at the time of its release, citing the premise of terrorists using passenger planes as instruments of destruction too implausible to suspend one's disbelief. It was the basis of the comedic 1982 Richard Brooks film Wrong Is Right starring Sean Connery, which was similarly poorly received. In 2008, the book, along with other McCarry thrillers, was released by Overlook Duckworth Press, labeled "the prophetic thriller." It is now believed to have predicted the attacks of September 11, 2001, and its aftermath. The title is a reference to Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address, a quote from which is the novel's epigraph, and the term is said to refer to Patrick Graham's conception of President Lockwood and Julian Hubbard.

The novel is set in 1992, during an election campaign between former president Franklin Mallory and current president Bedford Forrest "Frosty" Lockwood. It opens and closes with the Midsummer and Midwinter parties held by Patrick Graham, a news anchor famous for his progressive politics, and his wife, Charlotte, and in between those isolated chapters, it is divided into four parts. Franklin Mallory wants to be the first president since Grover Cleveland to serve two non-consecutive terms. During his first term, he had attempted a hostile takeover of Canada, incarcerated people for having criminal tendencies on psychological tests, and hired hundreds of thousands of out of work college graduates to work on the spaceship, Humanity, which sent a crew to Ganymede. All of these programs were undone by Lockwood, and Mallory wishes to do the same to his.

The novel is predominantly focused on the Graham family and the Hubbard family. The Hubbards are deeply entrenched in the Foreign Intelligence Service, a successor to the CIA after the latter was shut down for corruption. The sons of Elliott Hubbard, Horace had a hand in raising and educating Talil, the son of emir Ibn Awad of Hagreb, a tiny Arab nation and recent oil state. Talil was decapitated for allegedly murdering Awad at the signed request of his father. Julian Hubbard, also with FIS, is President Lockwood's closest adviser. He is married to his second wife, Emily, namesake of his deceased mother, and has two children, Elliott, and Jenny, by his first wife, Caroline, who was once raped by Patrick Graham, both friend and rival to Julian. Emily longs to become pregnant with a child that Julian wants to name Horace. The three names are prominent in his family, but they never name sons for themselves.

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