The Manchurian Candidate
First edition
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| Author | Richard Condon |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Bernard Krigstein |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Thriller novel |
| Publisher | McGraw-Hill |
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Publication date
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1959 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 311 |
| OCLC | 52409655 |
| 813/.54 21 | |
| LC Class | PS3553.O487 M36 2003 |
The Manchurian Candidate (1959), by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent U.S. political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a Communist conspiracy.
The novel has been adapted twice into a feature film by the same title, in 1962 and again in 2004.
Major Bennett Marco, Sergeant Raymond Shaw, and the rest of their infantry platoon are captured during the Korean War in 1952. They are taken to Manchuria, and are brainwashed to believe that Shaw saved their lives in combat – for which Congress awards him the Medal of Honor.
Years after the war, Marco, now back in the United States working as an intelligence officer, begins suffering the recurring nightmare of Shaw murdering two of his comrades, all while clinically observed by Chinese and Soviet intelligence officials. When Marco learns that another soldier from the platoon also has been suffering the same nightmare, he sets to uncover the mystery and its meaning.
It is revealed that the Communists have been using Shaw as a sleeper agent, a guiltless assassin subconsciously activated by seeing the "Queen of Diamonds" playing card while playing solitaire. Provoked by the appearance of the card, he obeys orders which he then forgets. Shaw’s KGB handler is his domineering mother Eleanor, a ruthless power broker working with the Communists to execute a "palace coup d’état" to quietly overthrow the U.S. government, with her husband, McCarthy-esque Senator Johnny Iselin, as a puppet dictator.
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