James Nicoll Reviews

You Seer of Visions

Night of Camp David

By Fletcher Knebel

18 Jan, 2026

**Because My Tears Are Delicious To You**

12 comments

Fletcher Knebel’s 1965 Night of Camp David is a stand-alone near-future political thriller. Or possibly a fantasy.

Life is sweet for Iowa Senator Jim MacVeagh. He has won high office, his doting wife is conveniently far away in Iowa, and his politically savvy mistress Rita is conveniently at hand in Washington.

Then comes a nighttime meeting with President Mark Hollenbach at Camp David, and the offer of the vice-presidency.

In Liberating Strife

Seven Days in May

By Fletcher Knebel & Charles W. Bailey

21 May, 2017

**Because My Tears Are Delicious To You**

0 comments

Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey’s 1962’s Seven Days in May is a best-selling political thriller set in the early 1970s.

The struggle over Iran brought the Americans and Soviets to the brink of all-out war. Republican President Edgar Frazier’s decision to accept a divided Iran was reasonable under the circumstances (it averted nuclear war) but it was political suicide for him¹.

As his Democratic Party replacement Jordan Lyman discovers, sometimes success is just the opportunity to fail on a more epic scale.