"Advise and Consent" - and a possible spoiler

[Mike L]

(Apologies if I have posted this in the wrong forum. It's not really a recommendation, but I couldn't see a better place to put it.)

Alan Drury's "Advise and Consent" was a best-seller when I was at school, but I never got round to reading it. I recently saw that it available as a Kindle book, so I bought a copy.

But I was horrified to see, on the very first page, the paragraph shown below, under the heading Book Description.

WARNING: Don't read the following spoiler if you haven't read the book, and are likely to do so. But if you have read the book, I'd appreciate your comments.

The paragraph was as follows:

Spoiler:

A 1959 Pulitzer Prize-winning political novel, later made into a movie, about Senate confirmation hearings for Secretary of State for a nominee who is a former member of the Communist Party. The Senator heading the confirmation subcommittee, while under pressure to move the nomination to the forward, is discovered to have a homosexual past and commits suicide rather than face exposure.

It looks to me as if those last half-dozen words gives away the ending in a way that would completely spoil the book.

Am I right about that, or is the action described in fact something that happens early on in the book?

I would appreciate an answer to that question, as it will help me decide whether I want to read the book after all.

Mike

[Catlady]

Well, that's not the ending of the book, but it is quite spoiler-ish, and whoever wrote it should have had more sense.

Regardless, it is an extremely enjoyable and readable book, even though quite dated. I recommend it highly. Great movie, too, with an all-star cast!

[wayspooled]

I remember that as a really good book. I think that would be a spoiler but as was said, not ruin the story. "Preserve and Protect" and "The Throne of Saturn" I remember he wrote and I enjoyed as well. I think it's "Advise" not "Advice", but I haven't run to look it up.

[Catlady]

Drury wrote several more books using the characters and the milieu he established in Advise and Consent. The next in the series is A Shade of Difference, which is mostly based in the UN.

I think most of Drury's books have recently been reissued as e-books.

[Mike L]

Thank you both for your help. I think I'll go ahead and read it anyway, although it's a shame about the spoiler. Thanks also for the info about Drury's other books, which I hadn't heard about.

(And you're right, Wayspooled. It is advise, not advice.)

Mike

[Dr. Drib]

Title and internal word now corrected.

Don
(Moderator)

[Mike L]

Thanks, Don.

Mike