A groundbreaking, explosive account of the Kennedy assassination that will rewrite the history of the 20th century's most controversial murder investigation
The questions have haunted our nation for half a century: Was the President killed by a single gunman? Was Lee Harvey Oswald part of a conspiracy? Did the Warren Commission discover the whole truth of what happened on November 22, 1963?
Philip Shenon, a veteran investigative journalist who spent most of his career at The New York Times, finally provides many of the answers. Though A Cruel and Shocking Act began as Shenon's attempt to write the first insider's history of the Warren Commission, it quickly became something much larger and more important when he discovered startling information that was withheld from the Warren Commission by the CIA, FBI and others in power in Washington. Shenon shows how the commission's ten-month investigation was doomed to fail because the man leading it – Chief Justice Earl Warren – was more committed to protecting the Kennedy family than getting to the full truth about what happened on that tragic day. A taut, page-turning narrative, Shenon's book features some of the most compelling figures of the twentieth century—Bobby Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, Chief Justice Warren, CIA spymasters Allen Dulles and Richard Helms, as well as the CIA's treacherous "molehunter," James Jesus Angleton.
Based on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented access to the surviving commission staffers and many other key players, Philip Shenon's authoritative, scrupulously researched book will forever change the way we think about the Kennedy assassination and about the deeply flawed investigation that followed.
A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2013
- Read a Classic You Missed...
- Scifi Absolute Classics
- Contemporary Romantic Comedy
- If you like Danielle Steel, try these!
- If you like John Grisham
- Michael Connelly alike ebooks
- Fairy Tale, Myth, and The Hero's Journey
- New eBook additions
- Always Available Classics
- Invention, Innovation, and Inquisitiveness
- National Book Award Longlist ebooks
- And the Prize Goes to....
- Graphic Novels - they're not just for teens and children
- See all
- Full-cast recordings
- Get Your True Crime Fix
- Find and Listen to a Classic That You Missed...
- Read by a Celeb
- Listen to a New Series
- If you like Danielle Steel, Try These!
- Michael Connelly alike audiobooks
- If you like Stephen King...
- Fantasy here!
- New Audiobook Additions
- Audio available now
- Audiobooks with Great Narration
- Top Audiobook Narrators
- See all