When President Bob Hanover is shot point-blank during a White House press conference, just weeks before he"s scheduled to accept his party"s nomination for re-election, Nick Addis--a trusted aide--happens to be in the midst of investigating an old real estate transaction involving Hanover and his wife (back when he was the governor of Louisiana) that has come back to haunt them. Meanwhile, Clarence Dunne, the head of the Secret Service detail charged with guarding Hanover"s life, has been shut out of the subsequent investigation, but continues to do legwork on his own. Of course, Dunne and Addis cross paths, and they in turn eventually meet Julia Lancette, a beautiful CIA analyst whose specialty lies in tracking down the agency"s rogue elements. In the midst of all this intrigue, Addis is also under pressure to choose sides between the former vice president and the first lady as the nominating convention draws near. Deep Background is perhaps the best Clintonesque roman à clef since Primary Colors, although David Corn does sometimes play the parallels a bit too heavily (such as his recycling of the joke about the president, his wife, and her ex-boyfriend the gas station attendant). As the Washington editor for The Nation, Corn is intimately familiar with D.C. power games, and he puts his knowledge to masterful effect here. But thinly disguised and slightly altered portraits aren"t enough to carry a novel of this sort--so Corn loads up the plot with plenty of twists and turns. Fans of two very different types of Beltway fiction--thrillers of the David Baldacci school and Allen Drury"s political dramas--will find something they can share in Deep Background.