Federal Triangle: Hardee Mumms

New York Times review: This novel lampoons Watergate potboilers, Washington “insider” books (by everyone from Theodore White to Garry Wills), exotic therapies (from est to “Sensuous Seniors Seminars”), consciousness‐expanding EasternIsms and everything else in its trendy, chic Washington setting. Even the absurdly arbitrary piling up of one‐sentence paragraphs seems to be a parody of potboiling page‐turners. So many awful things are aped (cute alliterations, for example) that the novel has a kind of exhilarating vulgarity, like a novelistic equivalent of Mad magazine. From the tense human drama of the opening (“Sometimes - just sometimes - a deeply personal moment can seem to halt the pulsing rhythm of a city”) to the probing ruminations of the epilogue (“Now, a new era was to begin. Some things would change dramatically. Others wouldn't . ... The future holds important discoveries still to be made.’ “), the novel sweeps the reader along. Especially unforgettable is Mr. Mumms's keen eye for relevance and topical detail: “Abdul was devastatingly handsome, like a young Omar Sharif before his eyeballs turned red.”  Writing of scandal in the highest echelons of Government, Mr. Mumms uses both real and fictitious names to achieve a startling authenticity. 'Hardee Mumms'  is the collective pseudonym for seven staff writers at The Washington Star.