Assassination! July 14

July 14. One of Europe's most sinister terrorist organizations hatches a brilliant plan to assassinate the feared and powerful leader of France, President Charles de Gaulle. Max Palk, an extraordinarily talented British secret agent, is summoned to Paris to hunt down the assassins before it is too late. Ensnared in a terrifying web of doublecross and death, Palk races against the clock to outmaneuver, outshoot, and outthink his increasingly desperate foes. A decade before The Day of the Jackal appeared, Ben Abro's "Assassination! July 14" became an international sensation, thanks to its sizzling plot, an ingenious, intellectual hero, and a realistic depiction of France's volatile political scene in the 1960s. In fact, the novel proved too real, provoking outrage and a lawsuit that shut down its publication. For the first time in decades, this gripping, underground thriller is again widely available. The equally riveting story behind the novel and the controversy it spawned are carefully explained in an informative essay by James D. Le Sueur. Drawing upon interviews with the authors, court transcripts, and recent evidence and scholarship, Le Sueur examines how an item of popular culture could have had such national and international repercussions. Ben Abro is the pseudonym of Robert Silman and Ian Young, who were students of philosophy under Jean-Francois Lyotard at the Sorbonne in the early 1960s. James D. Le Sueur is an associate professor of history at the University of La Verne. His works include the forthcoming "Uncivil War: Intellectuals and Identity Politics" during the Decolonization of Algeria.