Bootlicker

by Steve Piacente

In the summer of 1959, two black teens hoping to sneak a beer in the South Carolina woods stumble on a Klan lynching led by the local judge. One bolts. The other freezes and winds up with a choice: join the man about to die, or begin hustling black support the judge needs to advance in politics. In trade, he will enjoy a life of power and comfort. Decades later, Big Ike is about to become the state's first black congressman since Reconstruction. Instead, he finds himself in the same forest, a long rope in his fist, muttering the hated nickname again and again: Bootlicker.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Southern Gothic, Southern

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Bella is the winner of a National Indie Excellence 2012 Book Award, and the Readers' Favorite 2012 Gold Medal for Dramatic Fiction. Bootlicker, the prequel to Bella, was published in September 2012 and is winner of the 2013 Readers' Favorite Silver Medal for Southern Fiction. Pretender (2018) explores the raw instincts that form our choices and drive our actions, sometimes with consequences that span generations.

But it all started for me in 1954.

Eisenhower was president, no one beat the Yankees, and Elvis was still an unknown. TV was three channels and two colors, black and white. Growing up, I didn’t particularly like school. I liked baseball, egg rolls and comic books, and it was Superman that got me interested in reading and writing.

Raised in New York and educated in Washington, I kept moving south after college, eventually learning all they left out at journalism school at the feet of street-smart newspaper editors in Florida and South Carolina.

In 1985, one of those editors found me presentable enough to send back to D.C., this time as correspondent for the Tampa Tribune. The job ended four years later, and I found myself in steep competition for a similar slot with the Charleston, S.C. paper. I remember pumping the Charleston editor’s hand and pleading, “Please don’t let me become a press secretary.”

The man was merciful, enabling nine more years of Washington reporting, and front row exposure to the real South, as Charleston is far deeper into Dixie than Tampa, geography be damned. As time wore on, my NY sensibilities blended with Southern convention to produce stories on intriguing topics such as public celebration of the Confederate flag, and segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond.

It was a great time until Charleston ran out of cash and shuttered its one-man D.C. bureau. Out in the cold, I - by this time a father of three ravenous, athletic, college-bound children - found warmth in a little known Federal agency called the U.S. General Services Administration. I began as a speechwriter and today head the agency’s web, new media, and graphics teams.

Though Bella is my first real fiction, some thin-skinned politicians would say the stories I wrote about them were just as fabricated. In fact, no fiction bubbled up until I earned my license to write in the Johns Hopkins Masters program in 2000. During this time, I also reentered the classroom at American University, my alma mater, and began teaching journalism classes.

My insistence on clean, tight writing did no lasting harm to the three afore-mentioned children, now taxpaying adults in the fields of public relations, web design, and engineering. It wasn’t until years later that I learned that the kids snuck secret help from their mom, Felicia Piacente, a special education administrator in the Montgomery County (Md.) Public School System.

Reviews

[Skip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Piacente's second novel is a prequel to Bella, starring reporter Dan Patragno. Patragno writes a moving news story about a murder-suicide, is promoted to the political beat, and is assigned to cover a Congressional race in South Carolina engineered to bring the state's first black since the late 1800's. The leading candidate was a key figure in mustering black support for a white S.C. Senator, and the story of how he got involved with the Senator is a key element of the story. Piacente is clearly a Washington D.C. insider, well versed in how newspaper reporters and newspapers work. Well done.

[Read In Colour · Rating 4 out of 5]

#BookReview: Bootlicker - Steve Piacente

It's Big Ike Washington's turn. He's been the go to man for the black communities of South Carolina for the longest. It's not that Ike has that much power as mayor of small town Kilgo, it's that he has the ear of U.S. Senator Lander McCauley. That, combined with the congressional redistricting of the state, is enough to insure that Ike Washington will be the first black congressman from South Carolina since Reconstruction.

How is a small town black mayor like Ike connected to such a powerful senator? Everyone in Kilgo knows that Ike has been McCauley's boy for years, but no one knows the price he's paid for that. Haunted by what he witnessed as a teen, Ike keeps his mouth shut. And that seems like a small price to pay in his quest to fulfill his political aspirations, but is it?

As a reporter, Dan Patragno has aspirations of his own. His immediate goal is to move from the homicide section to anything else at the Charleston Herald-Leader. His long-term goal is a position at the Washington Post. A story on Big Ike's Washington run for Congress may be just the thing Dan needs to get there. A story exposing Ike definitely is.

Bootlicker really makes you question just how far you're willing to go and how many secrets you'd be willing to cover up to get to where you want to be. At times, I felt sorry for Ike; at other times, I was repulsed by him. Here's why. The shame of selling out and the fear of repercussion kept him from telling his wife and his mother his secret and if you can't tell the person you're sleeping with your secrets (or the woman that raised you and probably knows you better than anyone), whom can you tell? On the other hand, how selfish, low down, trifling, conniving and greedy do you have to be to accept the favors and benefits that go with keeping said secret?

I can't remember where I first heard about Bootlicker, but the subject matter fascinated me, so when the author reached out to me, I immediately agreed to read it. It turns out that he was going to BEA too and, as luck would have it, we ended up standing in the registration line together and had a nice chat. A journalist turned communications specialist and professor, Bootlicker is his second novel. His first, Bella, is a prequel to Bootlicker, but as Steve told me in line, both books can stand alone. After reading Bootlicker, I can't wait to dive into Bella.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bootlicker by Steve Piacente

4 stars

He’s done it again, I don’t know if it’s his brilliant writing or his controversial choice of storylines but wow, this guy is brave. As an English reader I don’t perhaps feel the emotional connection to the issues as an American would but that doesn’t take the enjoyment away. The stories are daring, the amount of research behind it is fantastic, Piacente has in effect made a story that could easily be true.

I think its brave for anyone to tackle politics, even braver to address racism, these are real issues that people no longer think about, Bootlicker forces the reader to react and to assess their own thoughts and actions.

The more I read from this author the more challenged I feel, you ask yourself these questions and you travel the journey with the characters but also in your own way, you disagree with the decisions and by the end, I think many will agree, you’re shocked by your own thought process and it’s like walking a path of self discovery.

I cant fault the writing, I cant fault the story or the characters, and I cant praise it without giving too much away, therefore I think this is one everyone needs to read for themselves.

Copy supplied for review

[L. Shosty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I was given a free copy of Bootlicker in exchange for an honest review.

Bootlicker doesn't know what it wants to be. Does it want to be a political thriller? Does it want to be a winking, Yankee-fied view of the South? Does it want to be something cathartic and sentimental, a Driving MIss Daisy featuring two largely amoral characters instead of an earnest black man and prejudiced Jewish lady? It's really hard to say. Bootlicker is all over the place in terms of identity, but that doesn't stop it from being largely exciting and well-written.

Well-written. Let's begin there. This shouldn't even be a salient point to a review, but in the days of self-publishing leading to hundreds, if not thousands, of unreadable manuscripts, to run across one such as this, which is so well-written, I have to scream its praises from the rooftops. I recently read (or rather, tried to read) a book written by a former newspaperman about a murder which occurred down the street from where I lived when I was three years old. It was poorly-written, full of editorializing when it claimed to be a straight accounting of the crime, and contained dialogue which could not have been anything but made up. I mention this because being a journalist does not necessarily make you a good writer. In Piacente's case, THIS MAN CAN WRITE. And apparently he can edit, too. The work is crisp and professional. It's written with an eye for detail, but doesn't bog down too much in atmospherics, usually the downfall of most thrillers. Piacente never dawdles too long over a scene. He tells you what need to know, and he moves on to next plot point. This tells me he is either 1) a skilled editor with no conscience when it comes to "murdering his darlings", as the saying goes, or 2) he employed a professional editor to help him pare down the book. In either case, he demonstrates great wisdom. If you were given a .doc file with no cover art, blurbs, or publisher information, you would swear this was published by Random House or another big-name firm. It's that good.

Story-wise, Bootlicker uses as its vehicle the modern political thriller. The style, the characters, and especially the tropes inherent to the sub genre are all here. You've got your man with the dark secret, your cub reporter looking for his first big story, your naive political operative destined to have her eyes opened to the realities of politics, and the charismatic, seemingly all-powerful authority figure to act as bad guy. You've got the overarching event toward which we are dragged. In this case it's the impending election of a new congressman to the U.S. House of Representatives. "Big" Ike Washington hopes to be that man, the first black man elected in South Carolina since the Civil War. A "dark meat" re-districting of the state all but ensures a black candidate, and Ike, long an operative in the employ of Senator Lander McCauley, feels it's his time. But Ike has a dark secret. A long time ago, in the days of Jim Crow, Ike saw the senator, then a judge, participate in lynching a young black man. He was caught and given a choice: help the judge get the black vote in his bid to win a senatorial seat, or die like the other man. Ike's choice is really a no-brainer. He doesn't want to die, and so for the next thirty-plus years he works as McCauley's man, getting black folks what they need to keep them happy while at the same time ensuring they turn out for McCauley on election day. He also lives with the guilt which comes with it, and that guilt begins to predictably boil over as we inch toward the election.

What damages Bootlicker's credibility as a political thriller is that none of this is really kept secret to the reader. Ike even makes portions of his story known to a member of his staff early in the book. Furthermore, there are virtually no repercussions once facts start to slip. There are no death threats, no political moves against Washington, no elements to add a sense of danger should Ike came forth with what he knows. There is never a source of tension one needs for an effective thriller. Cub reporter Dan Patragno learns bits and pieces and has something of a story, but it's nothing he can run. Rather than give us an edge-of-the-seat feeling while he scrambles to get the remaining pieces, Piacente decides to give us an instruction on how newspapers really run, how they decide to run stories, and how much goes into things, legally-speaking, before any startling events can be broken to the public. While that's actually a very interesting turn of events, it kills any chance the book will ever have of being a thriller. Instead, everything unfolds pretty much how it should, with few moments of shock, a bad guy who is simply bad but never turns truly monstrous, even if it means saving his own political skin, and an ending which lacks the catharsis it needs to be emotionally impactful.

So where does that leave it? You have the occasional sidelong glance from Patragno (who is undoubtedly an analogue for the author) on life in the South. It is suitably wise-seeming and cynical to appeal to an audience who automatically wants to think poorly of anything below the Mason-Dixon. He's hedged his bets by cozying something as often sleazy and dark as politics next to every day life, which is sometimes used as a clever bait-and-switch when he wants to say, "See? See how bad it can be?" as if the story weren't basically the same everywhere else, race-wise. To show Patragno is above it all, he enters into a relationship with a black woman on Washington's staff. The two fall for each other in a completely unrealistic way, and nothing is really made of their relationship. It leaves the reader with a feeling that Piacente did it mostly for politically correct reasons. If there had been more to the relationship, more scenes with the two, I would have been convinced otherwise. Here, it's just window-dressing, a way to show us that the book's protagonist is not like the rest of the characters, who are largely obsessed with color.

Piacente, and Bootlicker, is largely best when depicting regular folks. It is the supporting cast, and the brief glimpses we get into their lives, that makes the book. You see how artificial Ike, Patragno, and the rest are and how they've been shoehorned in when Piacente just lets his hair down and writes about real people, the folks in Ike's district who are the most affected by politics. There are people without sewage and running water in their homes, and there are former activists trying to stay relevant in an age that is slowly forgetting the 1960s. There are people who represent the new activism which emerged in the 1980s, the ones willing to dirty their hands as much as the political machine they were fighting in the name of progress. And then there are just the plain old folks, people you swear you know, at church fundraisers and hanging around outside businesses, the old guys you see playing checkers or chess somewhere. It's all here, and it's colorful and beautiful, and it lifts Bootlicker up on it shoulders in the brief instances we get to see it. I would have liked to have seen more of this and less of the political race. I would have given that book five stars. As is, Bootlicker is still a great book. It might not know what it is, but it knows where it's going, and how to get there. That's enough.

[Dawit Habte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steve Piacente’s done it again: first with Bella and now with Bootlicker. Bootlicker interweaves murder in the form of lynching, betrayal, intra-family and small town secrets, all in one. Bootlicker is also about the human character and our inner-conflicts; of the choices we make that end up haunting us for the rest of our lives. In the Deep South, South Carolina to be specific, “Big Ike” makes a life-altering choice for himself and his hometown. This reader believes that Ike Washington, more real than fictional character, made a personal “choice” but others might give “Big Ike” a pink slip pondering the question “what would you have done” if you “put yourself in his spot”. Dan Patragno, the investigative reporter and Piacente’s protagonist, doesn’t differentiate between volition and coercion. Just like any other ordinary investigative journalist, Patragno reports the facts regardless of where the chips might land. Patragno is neither Sherlock Holmes nor Hercule Perot. He is an ordinary small town investigative journalist with big dreams. Patragno wants to one day write for one of the major players in the print media. Covering southern politics, congressional election of a racially polarized district in South Carolina, is Patragno's opportunity to prove himself. Patragno does get lucky once in a while and he does follow his leads to the bitter end.
Can’t wait for Piacente’s third novel.

[Jak60 · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an ok read, not terribly good nor terribly bad; it's actually a rather ordinary novel, with a not-so-original plot and with characters lacking depth. The book is far from offering the same intensity of the best books with similar set ups, yet it is quite readable, as a beach read it does its job.

[Annette Mardis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part social commentary and part political/media thriller, "Bootlicker" is an authentic, thought-provoking and entertaining look at what happens when greed tramples goodness and decades-long deceit devours a decent man's soul.
Ultimately, though, "Bootlicker" is a story of redemption and of right (eventually) toppling might.
It's often said an author writes about what he or she knows, and that's evident in Piacente's second self-published novel. ("Bella," about a widow's quest to uncover the truth about her soldier-husband's battlefield death, was the first.)
He spent more than two decades as a print journalist, including stints in Charleston, S.C., and Washington, D.C., two of his new book's most prominent settings.
One of the main characters of "Bootlicker" is a cocky news reporter, Dan Patragno, who earns his promotion from the night cops beat by finagling an exclusive interview with a grief-numbed woman whose husband has just killed their baby and himself.
Patragno is assigned to cover the 1992 race in which small-town mayor Ike Washington is attempting to become South Carolina's first black congressman since the Civil War.
But Washington has a secret that threatens more than his political chances.
As a teenager, he stumbled upon a Ku Klux Klan lynching in progress, led by "Mac" McCauley. The county judge gives young Ike a choice: He can join the man at the end of the rope or he can keep his mouth shut and help McCauley secure support from black voters to further his ambitions.
Decades later, with McCauley firmly entrenched in Congress, many of Ike's supporters agree he had no real choice.
As for Patragno, he has choices but too often makes the wrong ones until, through perseverance and no shortage of luck, he lands the story that saves his job and catapults him to his dream employment.
The author's descriptions of back-room political deals and newsroom decision-making are spot on, as is his dialogue between Patragno and his editor.
Many novelists have featured reporters as central characters with varying degrees of accuracy.
Readers who want authenticity would do well to pick up Piacente's novels. His depictions of journalists and the way they go about their jobs, for better or worse, are the real deal.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aspiring reporter Dan Patragno's story about a murder-suicide in the Charleston Herald-Ledger secures him a promotion covering the political scene for the newspaper. He is assigned to cover the Congressional race in South Carolina, where the lead candidate is poised to become the first black South Carolina congressman since the Civil War. Dan's coverage of the election will lead to an unearthing of a shocking union that exists between the candidate and a racist U.S. Senator that will rock the foundation of the South Carolina and U.S. political landscapes.

Bootlicker is a riveting Southern political thriller that keep you sitting on the edge of your seat. Written in the third person narrative, the author weaves an intriguing tale of behind the scenes political power plays and buried secrets. Set in the enchanting palmetto state of South Carolina, the story is rich in detail and descriptions of the pre-Civil Rights Southern political scene full of dark secrets, lynchings and racial issues that were thought to be deeply hidden only to be brought forward and revealed in the present time.

The author has created a cast of characters that are realistic, complex and multi-faceted. They come to life with their activities, interactions and dialogues that jump off the page. You can't help but get caught up in their strife, tension and struggles, the suspense is palpable. The reader is easily transported into this fascinating tale of survival, deception, guilt and redemption, it is simply astonishing and it will make you wonder if it could possibly be based on a true story.

Author Steve Piacente's insider Washington D.C. reporter experience provides the reader with one heck of a suspenseful political thriller that will resonate with you long after the story ends.


Disclaimer: I received a copy of the book from the author in exchange for my honest review and participation in a virtual book tour event hosted by JKSCommunications.

http://jerseygirlbookreviews.blogspot...

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Y’all know I love me some Southern Fiction, especially those set in South Carolina (I LOVE my state). Bootlicker is one of those books that makes me proud to be Southern. Though Piacente is admittedly not a Southerner, he accurately and eloquently gives a Southern voice to his characters. The South is as much a character in this book as the actual characters. There are elements, like the racial unrest and discord that still exists to some extent today, that are as important to the story as the plot that couldn’t have been as real were Bootlicker not a Southern novel.

There is no political intrigue, no mystery to solve, no stalkers or assassins. Bootlicker is straight up fiction, and the good kind. We see the story unfold from the eyes of several different people, different views that make things feel real and earnest. I ached with their pains and rejoiced with their victories. Piacente wrote in a way that immediately draws you into the story, it pleads with you to invest your emotional fortune there, and leaves you stripped bare and yearning for the story. You believe it, you want it, and you will it with all your might to happen. And when it does, you’re relieved that it’s finished, glad that justice is served, and weary from just taken such a journey.

Booklicker isn’t perfect. We had our fair share of words. It knows how I feel, and we’re both ok with that. What it is, is a heart wrenching story, a victorious story; one you must read.

[Dixie Goode · Rating 5 out of 5]

Booklicker Shines

Bootlicker, by Steve Piacente, is called a prequel to his first, excellent novel, Bella. However, both books are completely capable of holding their own weight alone. In fact, while I really enjoyed Bella and rated it 5 stars, I loved Bootlicker more.
When a small, southern town has a judge, who is also a KKK member, in the summer of 1959, you really don't expect the story to be all sunshine and roses. When a small boy is eager to see the circus, and can't, simply because he is black, it is sad and enough to melt your heart, but when that boy turns 17 and stumbles upon a lynching and recognizes the victim, but can't save him you can feel his paralyzed terror. When he recognizes and is recognized by the two men in the KKK robes, and one is the Judge, you understand the sick, helplessness that first holds him captive and then sends him scrambling to escape.
When that boy turns 50 and is running for congress, but the evil Judge is now a powerful Senator who has enslaved him. When the ghost of the murdered man comes around, and so does an eager reporter, and a cast of flawed, real people; you have a wonderful, fast paced, gripping novel that sweeps you along to the powerful scene at its climax. The emotion at the end reminded me of Sophie's Choice, although I won't say any more than this, there is more hope there finally.
I really, enjoyed his book and did not want to put it down. I would recommend it to anyone who has an ounce of compassion for the racial issues and tensions that still plague our world.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was going to open by noting that this is an excellent self-published book. But that implies that the self-published nature of this book somehow detracts from its excellence, which it no way does. This is an excellent book. Period. The author’s experience as a journalist is evident not only in the story itself, which is driven, in part, by the investigative efforts of a young journalist, but also in the craftsmanship of the book itself, which is easily as good as any product from a big publishing house. The story is fast paced and crisply narrated, with just enough suspense to keep the reader at the edge of his or her seat.

This is a political thriller built around the campaign to elect the first black congressman from South Carolina in a century. A young journalist, struggling to make a name for himself begins digging into the background of the leading candidate, and the thread he begins pulling reaches back decades to the segregationist past of the pre-civil rights era. The shocking truth could derail the career of a long-serving senator and jump start the journalist’s career…if he doesn’t sabotage his own efforts first.

Thoroughly entertaining, this book delves into the politics of race in the South, and shows us what life is like for a young journalist trying to work his way up the career ladder. With memorable characters and a tightly woven storyline, this book would make an excellent movie, and certainly deserves a wider audience.

[Moonlight Gleam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steve Piacente is an award-winning former journalist, whose writing will have readers addicted to political thrillers and suspense. For readers who are not familiar with Steve Piacente’s previous work, I would highly recommend the author’s debut novel, Bella. Bootlicker is the Prequel to Bella, starring different characters and presenting a whole new exciting journey.

It is evident that Steve Piacente placed a lot of time and effort into the development and combination of all the elements presented within Bootlicker. With the author’s careful attention to detail, the storyline as well as the characters within Bootlicker feel very realistic. Steve Piacente’s experience in journalism shines through his writing, which displays the author's knowledge of how journalism truly impacts politics.

My favorite element within Bootlicker is the author’s writing style. Steve Piacente wastes no time getting right to the point, creating a fast-paced and quite enjoyable read. Although the novel was fast-paced, the storyline had depth and the characters were engaging throughout, which brought the whole novel together for me.

I recommend Bootlicker to readers who enjoy Suspense and Political Thrillers.

Must Read! Highly Recommended!

[AS Youngless · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bootlicker is the second book by Steve Piacente, and is a prequel to his debut novel, Bella. It follows around a young Dan Patragno who has recently moved down South to begin his life as a journalist.

I don’t want to sit here and recap the book, because I want you to go out read it. So this is what I’m willing to say – the opening of this book set the tone very quickly. Right out of the gate you know exactly who Dan is and catch a small glimpse of the world he now lives it. Just how far everyone is willing to go.

Just like Bella, Steve Piacente creates these wonderful characters that are so vivid and true to life they jump off the page and become part of your life. My very favorite was Ike. I LOVE Ike. Every small part of him that makes him lay awake at night, to his want of that Lincoln Town Car. Bootlicker is a moving story that makes you think about how uncivil, civil rights has been and still can be. It makes you ask what would you be willing to do, to live through, to keep going.

I liked Bella, a lot, but I loved Bootlicker. This is in my top 5 for 2013. I am glad I met Steve Piacente on Twitter, and that I had the opportunity to check out his work. You should check it out too.

[Inga · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review:

Bootlicker blew me away! After I read Steve Piacente's Bella I had very high hopes for Bootlicker and my expectations were exceeded. Bootlicker by Steve Piacente was engrossing, well written, thrilling. It was everything and more you expect from the political thriller.

The story starts from the end of 1950s where two boys see an execution by Klan. Years later, Dan Patragno, a reporter is investigating a story which takes him back in time to these events and from there different storylines start to develop.

Once again, Steve has created a settings and a story, which are detailed, right to the point. The writing style was beautiful, you can clearly see Steve's own writing experience shining through. It was witty, the dialogue and the story development excellent.

Bootlicker is extremely well-written page turner, it keeps you thrilled from the very beginning of the book and engrosses you until the last page is turned. It was fast-paced and quick read with many interesting and detailed pieces put together into a wonderful thriller!

I highly recommend Bootlicker by Steve Piacente!

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read my full review and fascinating author interview @:

My opinion: Steve Piacente is a dynamic writer. His books are fast paced and engrossing. His book, Bella, was a "can't put it down" for me and Bootlicker was the same way, reading it in a 3 hour sitting. Piacente writes incredibly strong characters and weaves captivating, deep storylines with a mystery that hooks the reader from page one.

I took half a star off my rating for the book because the book was written phonetically. Until I contacted the author, I had really thought that the book didn't have editing that would have been out of character for what I had read previously by this author. In my opinion, I would have liked to have seen an author's note or something like that explaining this. For me, it caused a lot of distraction which impacted my reading because it was confused with grammarical errors. I think with an author's note, this would have been prevented.

[Valentina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fast-paced, action-filled book that was truly tough to put down once I started it. It catches the reader’s attention from the beginning and doesn’t let go.


The characters are multi-layered, which, in a thriller of this kind, is not always the case. Their dialogues are used in a way that reveal the character, more than just take up room on the page and their interactions are dynamic, engrossing the reader. The only thing that bothered me was that the Southern accent was written into the book, which got frustrating sometimes.


Since the author has, from his personal background, a clear understanding of how journalism and politics go together, this book rings true. We don’t feel any of it is contrived in the way that some other thrillers can be.


This was a fun book to read, with lots of action to keep us entertained, and a simple way of writing that allows the story to shine through. I do recommend it.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book from the author for an honest review.

Bootlicker keeps your interest from the beginning. The characters are compelling. Ike is a guilt-ridden rising politician being covered by Dan, an ambitious reporter with the Charleston Herald-Leader. Both of the characters are realistic and it's easy to understand why they do the things they do.

The author draws on his own experience as a New Yorker transplanted in a southern newspaper and as a Washington correspondent to write this intriguing political novel. He does a good job not only with showing how politics and reporting work but also with race issues and how things progressed from the 50's to the 90's.

Bootlicker is an interesting story that I highly recommend, especially if you like political thrillers.

This review is also posted on my blog, www.bound4escape.com.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who knew an author raised in New York could write Southern Lit? This book grabbed me from the first page and took my right through to the end. I could smell the South Carolina air and feel the coastal heat and experience the terror and confusion and excitement of these characters every step of the way. If you remember the rein of Strom Thurmond, or even if you don't, this novel will ring true. I had huge empathy for the characters and I bought in to a story that is fiction, but could just as easily have really happened - who knows, maybe it has, somewhere?

An African-American candidate running for Congress in South Carolina. An old white Southern gentleman Senator that has a great interest in his protege winning. Why?

Read it.

[Eileen Parsons · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece! Bootlicker carries the reader through the dark corridors of political corruption, the racial divide during the Sixties battle over civil rights - and the lifetime nightmare for one man when the two collide. The determination of a young reporter threatens to expose the related secrets that have remained hidden for decades – secrets that could destroy one of the longest senatorial careers in the State of South Carolina.
Steve Piacente’s experience and knowledge of the political and journalistic worlds have allowed him to present a story that is believable and so authentic that the reader can’t help but feel like a character in the narrative.

Eileen K Parsons, Award-winning author of “The First Rose of Summer”

[Andrew Gibbons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Piacente is one of the few fictional writers that actually understands how journalism impacts politics. Combine that with Piacente's understanding of Southern politics and "Bootlicker's" plot line that seems to come straight out of stories your grandfather might have told you, you've got a winner. If you are looking for a great fictional story of suspense to read this election season, you probably just found one.

[Danielle Vinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steve Piacente has written a great story. He captures the nuances of local flavor in South Carolina small towns and Charleston, and he avoids the easy stereotypes to create characters that feel real.

[Marissa DeCuir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! What a novel. Truly a good storyline and not just a fluffy read. I'm such a sucker for these kinds of books!!

[Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

FANTASTIC!!!

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall an interesting read about South Carolina in 1959 and 1992, and the secret of a Klan lynching that keep a black man and a white man bonded through the decades.