Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Feb 2017
368 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
A polished and gripping political debut that Michael Connelly calls "an edge of your seat thriller," Shining City is set in DC amid a harrowing Supreme Court nomination fight.
Peter Rena is a "fixer." He and his partner, Randi Brooks, earn their living making the problems of the powerful disappear. They get their biggest job yet when the White House hires them to vet the president's nominee for the Supreme Court. Judge Roland Madison is a legal giant, but he's a political maverick, with views that might make the already tricky confirmation process even more difficult. Rena and his team go full-bore to cover every inch of the judge's past, while the competing factions of Washington D.C. mobilize with frightening intensity: ambitious senators, garrulous journalists, and wily power players on both sides of the aisle.
All of that becomes background when a string of seemingly random killings overlaps with Rena's investigation, with Judge Madison a possible target. Racing against the clock to keep his nominee safe, the President satisfied, and the political wolves at bay, Rena learns just how dangerous Washington's obsession with power - how to get it and how to keep it - can be.
Written with razor-sharp political insight and heart-pounding action, Shining City is a hugely impressive debut that announces a major new talent.
"Starred Review. Veteran journalist Rosenstiel's debut novel 'shines' with page-turning intensity that will make readers hope that this book is the beginning of a new series. Highly recommended for legal and political thriller junkies and fans of David Baldacci and John Grisham." - Library Journal
"The thriller plot returns, hammer and tongs, for a fine action finale, but what we remember most is characters like the vice president. He's taken on a gaunt look from attending too many funerals. Give this one to fans of the late, great Ross Thomas." - Booklist
"[A] polished, entertaining political thriller... Rosenstiel does a brilliant job dramatizing how Washington's political sausage is made... Readers will want to see a lot more of Rena and Brooks." - Publishers Weekly
"To ramp up suspense, Rosenstiel cuts periodically to an overused thriller trope - a lurking killer carrying out a series of brutal murders, graphically described. Eventually the assailant goes after Madison, bringing focus, momentum, and a fair degree of suspense to the proceedings. Sure to steady the pulse." - Kirkus
"Shining City is a smart, timely thriller that sends chills up your spine while capturing the verisimilitude of a ripped-from-the-headlines Supreme Court nomination process. Tom Rosenstiel is a writer to watch." - Alafair Burke, author of The Ex
"Shining City is an amazing novel full of insider knowledge and insights. Combine that with a plot that pulses with the momentum of an edge-of-your-seat thriller and Tom Rosenstiel delivers a debut that will be remembered for years." - Michael Connelly
"At once gripping, cerebral, and eerily prescient, Tom Rosenstiel's Shining City illuminates the darkest recesses of D.C.'s corridors of power. Rosenstiel's political machinations ring so true, you'll wonder if he has the White House wired for sound." - Chris Holm, author of The Killing Kind
"I loved Shining City and will share with DC insiders and friends far away from the Beltway." - Nicolle Wallace, former White House communications director and author of Madam President
"If they'd asked John Grisham to pen a season of House of Cards (not a bad idea, by the way), it would play like Shining City. Tough, smart, nuanced and with a hammer pace, Rosenstiel's debut offers an insider's tour of the puzzle palace that is Washington D.C." - Michael Harvey, author of Brighton
"Shining City couldn't possibly be any more timely. Rosenstiel takes us behind the headlines as only as insider can with this first-rate tale of political intrigue and maneuvering. It's so packed with authentic Washington detail you can almost feel the humidity." - Matthew Quirk, author of The 500 and Cold Barrel Zero
"Tom Rosenstiel takes readers behind the clichés and curtains of Washington power politics ... This is a fascinating novel about how justice is shaped in the United States that couldn't be more timely." - James Grady, author of Six Days of the Condor and Last Days of the Condor
This information about Shining City was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Tom Rosenstiel is a veteran observer of the political and media scene in Washington, D.C. The executive director of the American Press Institute and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, he was the founder of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, as well as a correspondent for Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times. Tom has written seven books of non-fiction. Shining City is his first novel. A sequel, The Good Lie, was published in February 2019.
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