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``The Franklin Affair'' by Jim Lehrer; Random House ($23.95)
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Tom Brokaw's ``Greatest Generation'' books will be part of his epitaph, Dan Rather has his name on a small pile of autobiographies, and Peter Jennings is co-author of two coffee-table history books.
All would duly bow, however, to TV anchordom's true man of letters. He's Jim Lehrer, the Texas-raised Kansas native who cut his print and broadcast journalism teeth at The Dallas Morning News, the Dallas Times Herald and KERA-TV before heading East to become a fixture on PBS' ``NewsHour.''
Lehrer's 15th novel, ``The Franklin Affair,'' is a serious-minded yet breezy detective story with a founding father as its principal suspect and a current-day scholar playing reluctant gumshoe. At issue: Late in his life, did Benjamin Franklin arrange for the murder of the woman who bore his illegitimate son, William?
There might be evidence to that effect in a puzzling 12-page document bequeathed to Reginald Raymond Taylor, called "R" by one and all because he detests his given names. R's just-deceased mentor, Wally Rush, was considered the world's pre-eminent Franklin biographer. Toward the end he literally tried to become Franklin in dress, physique and manner.
Now R is left to investigate whether Franklin could have been the defendant at an extraordinary secret meeting also attended by George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and his longtime antagonist, John Adams. The old kite-flyer's historical reputation hangs in the balance. But one also must balance the fact-fiction teeter-totter of history in all its tellings and retellings. What do we know, and did we ever really know it?
Lehrer also mixes in, less successfully, a current-day investigation of a haughty Ronald Reagan biographer accused of plagiarism. R's personal life also is at stake. Can he truly find happiness with a mercurial woman striving to breathe life into John Hancock, whose showy signature on the Declaration of Independence may have been the sum of his contributions to the American Revolution? Or will R's enduring true love always be ``Law & Order'' reruns?
Compact at 208 pages, The Franklin Affair'' is both perfectly suited to beach reading and deep enough to raise lasting questions about life, liberty and the pursuit of historical accuracy. Lehrer also has written a nice little after-dinner drink for readers of Walter Isaacson's best-selling 2003 biographyBenjamin Franklin: An American Life.''
Isaacson does Lehrer the favor of praising ``The Franklin Affair'' on its back-cover liner notes as "a fun tale of mystery, sleuthing and romance done with great literary flair."
He's got that right, even if Benjamin Franklin himself will remain a jigsaw puzzle with some pieces rearranged while others remain missing.
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(c) 2005, The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.
