Lost and Found

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1991. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Roslin Arington (Author Photograph). 222, [2] pages. Inscribed on the half-title page to Abelsohn [?] & Jackie--All the best, Jim Lehrer. Oklahoma's lieutenant governor, One-Eyed Mack, investigates the disappearance of Luther Wallace, the speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, the primary opponent of Oklahoma Governor Buffalo Joe Hayman's asinine turnpike construction project. James Charles Lehrer (May 19, 1934 - January 23, 2020) was an American journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and playwright. Lehrer was the executive editor and a news anchor for the PBS NewsHour on PBS and was known for his role as a debate moderator during U.S. presidential election campaigns, moderating twelve presidential debates between 1988 and 2012. He authored numerous fiction and non-fiction books that drew upon his experience as a newsman, along with his interests in history and politics. In 1959, Lehrer began his career in journalism at The Dallas Morning News in Texas. Later, he worked as a reporter for the Dallas Times Herald, where he covered the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. He was a political columnist there for several years, and in 1968 he became the city editor. In October 1975, Lehrer became the Washington correspondent for The Robert MacNeil Report on Thirteen/WNET New York. Two months later on December 1, 1975, he was promoted to co-anchor, and the program was accordingly renamed The MacNeil/Lehrer Report. In September 1983, Lehrer and MacNeil relaunched their show as The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, which was renamed The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, following MacNeil's departure in 1995. Derived from a Kirkus review: The fourth in a series about delightful one-eyed Mack—the zany, boyish, innocent Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma—who in this novel goes through the mildest midlife crisis ever to be committed to paper. At the opening, our man Mack is refereeing a Turnpike Squabble precipitated by the promise of his boss, Governor Buffalo Joe, to two rich constituents that he would build a four-lane road in each constituent's county, and the state legislature's corresponding determination that no four-lane road at all will appear. Then, without warning, Joe's foremost adversary on the issue, the Speaker of the State House of Representatives, a man named Luther Wallace, simply vanishes from home and office. Kidnapped? Murdered? Mack is determined to find out. With aid from his pal C., director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation, he does: Luther has run away. Dispatched by Luther's wife, Mack heads out to France, where he finds Luther and four other wacky country characters reliving their common heyday in the 50's as Marines. Meanwhile, Mack is also investigating an accident that has killed a Continental Trailways bus driver and 24 passengers on the Red River Bridge that separates Texas from Oklahoma; clues to that mystery and to Luther's weird behavior feed into one another, until the notion of middle age—including Mack's own—provides the key to both. Mack uses his accumulated wisdom to squelch all talk of turnpikes. The result is a very pleasant read.