The
End of Camelot by Diana Rubino
November
22, 1963, a day that changed America forever. Who killed President Kennedy?
I've been a HUGE JFK
assassination buff since that very day. Everyone who was alive on November 22,
1963 knew exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the
news. I was in my first grade classroom. The teacher got a call on the
classroom phone and told us ‘the president was shot.’ A collective gasp went
around the room. I was 6 years old and in first grade. It was ten years
before I saw the footage of Ruby shooting Oswald, on an anniversary
documentary.
But it was my grandmother who
got me interested in the biggest mystery since 'who killed the princes in the
Tower?' (I'm a Ricardian; that's for another post). She got me embroiled
right along with her.
She listened to all the radio
talk shows (those who lived in the New York area might remember Long John
Nebel, on WOR, WNBC, and WMCA, all on AM radio (FM was really 'out there' at
that time).
She recorded all the radio talk
shows. She bought whatever books came out over the years, along with the Warren
Commission Report, which I couldn't lift at the time, it was so heavy. But my
interest never waned in the 51 years that followed.
In 2000, I began the third book
of my New York Saga, set in 1963. The heroine is Vikki McGlory Ward, daughter
of Billy McGlory, hero of the second book, BOOTLEG BROADWAY, set during
Prohibition. This was my opportunity to write a novel showcasing all my current
theories, and continue the saga. It took a minimum of research, since I
remember all the 60's brands, (Bosco, Yum Berry, Mr. Bubble...), the fashions,
the songs, and I even included a scene set on that unforgettable night when the
Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, February 9, 1964.
About THE END OF CAMELOT
The third in the New York Saga, The End of Camelot centers on Billy McGlory’s daughter Vikki,
whose husband is murdered trying to prevent the assassination of John F.
Kennedy. Vikki uses her detective skills to trace the conspiracy, from New York
to New Orleans to Dallas, and at the same time, tricks her husband’s murderer
into a confession. A romance with her bodyguard makes her life complete.
November 22, 1963: The assassination
of a president devastates America. But a phone call brings even more tragic
news to Vikki Ward—her TV reporter husband was found dead in his Dallas hotel
room that morning.
Finding his notes, Vikki realizes
her husband was embroiled in the plot to kill JFK—but his mission was to
prevent it. When the Dallas police rule his death accidental, Vikki vows to
find out who was behind the murders of JFK and her husband. With the help of
her father and godfather, she sets out to uncover the truth.
Aldobrandi Po , the bodyguard hired
to protect Vikki, falls in love with her almost as soon as he sets eyes on her.
But he's engaged to be married, and she’s still mourning her husband. Can they
ever hope to find happiness in the wake of all this tragedy?
Excerpt:
It was New Year’s Eve,
they were alone, and he was harmless. So far. So she took the necessary two
paces over to him and placed the honey ball between his custom-made choppers.
He closed his eyes, and
she watched him savoring the sweetness. She didn’t dare say another word as she
ran her index finger over a glob of cream on the cannoli plate, raised it to
her lips and licked. “Mmmm,” she voiced, wishing she hadn’t.
Their eyes met and
locked. Faster than lightning, they came together like magnets. Their lips met,
sweet and sticky and hot. She didn’t want him to stop, but her inner voice
screamed how wrong it was—It’s forbidden!—echoing
the nuns in Saint Gustina’s. She shooed it away like an annoying fly. Leave me alone, I’m not a kid anymore.
Her arms circled his neck, and his hands slid down to the curve of her back.
Dare she move in closer, pelvis to pelvis, an unthinkable act three seconds
ago? Her body was betraying her, betraying Jack, taking on a will of its own as
she crushed herself to him. The kiss intensified. She tasted cannoli, and her
fogged mind told her he’d been sampling them all day. She breathed in his
cologne, so foreign it repelled her, so new it aroused her even further. Her
tiara slipped off her head. She caught it just as he pulled away.
He held her at arm’s
length as in a tango. “Oh, cara mia,”
he growled—and if he said another word in Italian, she knew she’d explode. A
passion long dormant stirred inside her.
My favorite passage from
the book:
Billy came down the
stairs for a nightcap and glanced into the living room. He noticed the glow in
the fireplace, Vikki’s eyeglasses and the anisette bottle on the table. The
couch faced the other way, but nobody was sitting on it. “Where’d they go?” Then
he realized they hadn’t gone anywhere—and they were on the couch, but not
sitting. Before he got out of their way, he placed a long-playing record on the
phonograph. Jackie Gleason’s “For Lovers Only.”
