Jake Tapper’s All the Demons are Here is a thriller that immerses readers in the turbulent ’70s
Salena Zito
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PHILADELPHIA — Evel Knievel, Watergate, Studio 54, the Vietnam War, the New York City blackout of 1977, the death of Elvis Presley: Jake Tapper was just a child when these larger-than-life figures and moments were making headlines in the ’70s. The CNN news anchor and novelist admits he only peripherally remembers their impact, yet nonetheless, he finds a way to bring them to life in his newest novel, All the Demons Are Here. It is an action-packed thriller that places the reader right in the thick of one of the most culturally volatile times in the last century.
Tapper has penned a page-turning storyline that keeps the heart racing long after the last chapter is finished. If you are looking for your summer read, this is it. The well-crafted thriller belongs under every umbrella at the beach, on every dock at the lake, or illuminated by a flashlight under your sleeping bag in a tent.
Tapper, a veteran Washington journalist who was born here in the City of Brotherly Love, is releasing his third novel on Tuesday from Little, Brown and Company. It is part of a historical thriller series that began with the story of dashing World War II veteran and congressman Charlie Marder and his wife Margaret in his debut novel, The Hellfire Club, and continued into the glorious and glamorous ’60s with the Rat Pack in The Devil May Dance.
All The Demons Are Here opens with the Marders’ children, Ike and Lucy, in the turbulent ’70s, an era Tapper said he almost skipped over until he started his research for the book.
Tapper said his mind was changed by a reporter who covered that decade who told him to take a look at the ’70s, in particular 1977.
“What a wild year that was,” he said. “I actually was going to skip the ’70s altogether, because I did the ’50s in the first book, the ’60s in the second. I was going to go right to the ’80s — to the Top Gun, Reagan, Wall Street ’80s.”
Tapper said that journalist stopped him in his tracks. “She said, ‘No, no, no, don’t sleep on the ’70s. That’d be a mistake.’ And she was right. And I couldn’t even believe all the stuff that happened,” he said.
Tapper said he was 8 in 1977. “I remember a little bit of what I wrote about. I remember Star Wars. I remember Jaws. I remember disco. I remembered Elvis dying. But during most of it, I was in my little world, and I didn’t know about the Summer of Sam. I didn’t know about the rise of tabloid journalism. I didn’t know about the New York City blackout. I was in Philly. I mean, how would I even know?” he said of things most parents kept from a child.
Tapper, who is a fan of classic thrillers and suspense books, said when he wrote the first book, he wanted his thriller to not just be about a male protagonist. “In Hellfire Club, it’s congressman Charlie Marder — I wanted it to be about him and his wife, zoologist Margaret Marder,” he said.
Tapper said while he enjoys reading thrillers with one main character, he wanted to explore a different storyline than the traditional single male seducing his way through the plot.
“Those stories are great, and I read them all the time, but I wanted to try something like Nick and Nora from The Thin Man,” he said. “I wanted to try the idea of a couple as the protagonist, where maybe the woman is even a little bit stronger than the man in some ways.”
Tapper said it’s true that you write what you know, and as a married father of two, he did just that.
“Having a strong wife and a happy family is what I know,” he said. “And it’s also a way to differentiate the series from other thrillers. I wanted to have the family unit be at the core. Also women read books more than men do. So it’s important for me to meet the readers where they are.”
His life experiences, he said, helped inspire the idea of the family in the book.
“Margaret is pregnant in the first book, which adds a level of heightened suspense because she’s with child, but also establishes at the beginning that this is a family unit,” he said.
In the second book, Ike and Lucy play a small role and spend most of the storyline at home with Margaret’s mother. (In a book about the Rat Pack, there isn’t really a lot of room for children running around.)
“This book is about Ike and Lucy, and you’re right, the family unit is at its core, and the book isn’t resolved until they are. … I don’t want to spoil anything, but the book isn’t resolved until they’re all together,” he said.
All the Demons are Here begins with Lucy finding Ike in a dive bar in Butte, Montana. They reconnect in the middle of the book, and at the end, well, let’s just say it has a dramatic conclusion.
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Everything that happens in the chapters in between is a barn-burner.
The emotional conflict in the family when they are separated is the core of the mounting tension and uncertainty in the book. The ending is stunning despite not having your traditional Bond ending with the hero standing with his latest conquest on a boat. Instead, it is meaningful, substantive, satisfying, and a read worthy of revisiting on a cold winter night.