They just declassify documents about the murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, JFK. Many books have been written about possibly the most iconic president in the history of the United States. We see these today 5 titles with his figure as the protagonist or background, signed by these three well-known names of the journalist Philip Shenon and the writers Stephen King and James Ellroy. Three points of view, the historical and journalistic, the science fiction and the stark fiction about one of the most important characters of the XNUMXth century. 

JFK Case open - Philip Shenon

Philip Shenon he is an investigative journalist of the The New York Times in Washington, where he has worked since 1981. It was in the spring of 2008 that his phone rang one day at his newspaper stand. He was an important lawyer who was a member of the famous Warren Commission who investigated the murder of JFK. That man asked him to tell what the members of that commission knew who were still alive.

22/11/63 - Stephen King

How could he not dare with JFK the undisputed master of terror and more than prolific Stephen King? So in 2012 I published this book with the story of Jake epping, an English teacher in a small town in Maine. One day one of his adult students, Harry Dunning, write an essay that impacts you. The proposed theme was "The Day My Life Changed" and Dunning recounted what happened the night his father came home drunk and smashed his mother, brother and sister to death. He managed to save himself.

Shortly after, Al, a friend of Jake, discovers a great secret: in the warehouse of his restaurant he has found a door leading to the year 1958. Al asks Jake to travel back in time to meet a mission, which is that, prevent the assassination of Kennedy.

So Jake goes to 1958 to start a new life with a new identity and wait until 1963. And it will give him time to fall in love with the beautiful librarian Sadie dunhill, look for Lee Harvey Oswald and the family of his student Harry Dunning to avoid his tragedy. Jake also knows that only two minutes will have passed in his world when he returns. But the question is to know what other changes will have provoked his actions and if he will be able to leave the woman of his life behind in the past.

American Trilogy - James Ellroy

Jack Kennedy was the mythological figurehead for a particularly juicy page in our history. He had a classy accent and wore a haircut like no other. […] Jack was assassinated at the optimum moment to ensure sanctity and lies continue to revolve around his eternal flame. It is time to dislodge his urn and expose a few men who contributed to his rise and facilitated his downfall.

That writes James Ellroy at the beginning of America, first title of this essential trilogy for everyone interested in that time and the most stark portrait of its characters. The Rabid dog, master of the crudest and most violent crime novel, he wrote this trilogy without concessions. Of course in your particular and unique style direct, scathing, telegraphic, violent and complex.

The events narrated in this trilogy begin in 1958 and end in 1972. Ellroy uses fiction but also reality in a unabashed mix of historical events and real and fictional characters with whom he has no regard. Historical and black novel merge in this enormous work, difficult but intense and very disturbing.

America

We are in 1958 and we have the usual storytelling structure with a trio of protagonists. Pete bondurant, Big Pete, a quebecquois ex-marine, corrupt cop, extortionist for Howard Hughes and murderer for mobster Mickey Cohen. The elegant Kemper boyd, FBI agent, law graduate with a daughter in college. Y Ward J. Littell, an FBI communications expert, with a daughter, an ex-wife, alcohol problems, and cowardly but more honest.

These three men will cross their lives in Ellroy's dark portrait of those years of political intrigues, police corruption, the crisis with Cuba and racial conflicts all the way to the days before the JFK assassination.

Six of the greats

Here we are at 1963 and the protagonists are still Pete Bondurant and Ward J. Littell. With them appears another FBI agent, Wayne Tedrow Jr., who with $ 6.000 in his pocket arrives in Dallas to kill Wendell Durfee, a black player accused of rape and murder. Now the fictional plot mixes with the reality where they were Bobby Kennedy or Malcom X. Racial conflicts continued and the Ku Klux Klan. In addition, we walked by Las Vegas or Vietnam in a shocking painting from the 60s.

Vagrant blood

The third title already places us in 1968. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy have died. And now Wayne Tedrow Jr. He's a heroin dealer, he's building a mafia gaming mecca, and he's increasingly radical in his ideas. With him they cross Don cructhfield, a private detective, and Dwight holly, another agent and a J. Edgar Hoover thug obsessed with a woman, Joan Rosen, whom they call the Red goddess and it is the objective of all three.