Who Killed Kennedy?
Posits an interesting approach for a Doctor Who novel as it doesn’t recount a
particular adventure with the Doctor, but focuses on investigative journalist
James Stevens. James Stevens is a
journalist who from 1969 to 1971 investigated a series of terrorist attacks in
the United Kingdom where conspiracy theorists are convinced that these attacks
were caused by aliens. The novel is a
collection of documents taken from Stevens’s own account of events as he
attempts to uncover what he thinks are horrors at UNIT. These documents are intertwined with
secondary sources documenting appearances of a group of men collectively known
as the Doctor as well as letters found from a UNIT Private posted to the
soldier’s mother, with certain words and phrases censored under the Official
Secrets Act. The idea behind the novel
gets you interested from the word go as it begins by recounting events from
Season Seven and Season Eight in the style of the film, All the President’s Men.
Stevens even has his own Deep Throat as informant to what UNIT are up to
and where to go to find how everything sort of fits together. The novel is divided into three parts and the
first part as well as the first half of the second part are dedicated to the
recounting of television stories with the few dossiers and an interview with
Isobel Watkins from The Invasion. What carries this section of the novel is the
many little references to the stories of the era and just how obsessed Stevens
becomes in these sections.
The Claws of Axos
is the final story to be recounted in that style as Stevens is made aware of
C19 and the Glasshouse. C19 is a
government organization and the Glasshouse is some sort of hospital. While UNIT seems to be doing things under the
table, Stevens finds that the Glasshouse is guilty of worse crimes as he falls
in love with Dodo Chaplet. It turns out
that after The War Machines, Dodo was
captured by the Glasshouse and has become emotionally broken, much how Stevens
is after the loss of his wife. They are
troubled souls who find happiness in each other. Bishop then proceeds to reveal that like the
rest of Season Eight it is the Master behind everything. Your heart again is ripped out of your chest
as Stevens loses any credibility after trying to expose the Glasshouse with
UNIT Private Cleary, which allows Cleary to sneak off under hypnosis and shoot
Dodo dead. Yes this novel features the
end of Dodo which is just a tear jerking moment in the novel as David Bishop
has made you feel very sorry for the companion with very little effort put
in. The Master as seen in this novel is
also portrayed brilliantly as the Roger Delgado incarnation who doesn’t care
who dies as long as he can rule the world.
His actions are horrible and the conspiracy that he is at the
Glasshouse, under the noses of UNIT is a terrifying concept to realize that he
was there all along. He also happens to
the Stevens’s informant which helps the transition into the third act of the
novel.
Stop reading here because
there are massive spoilers to the highly emotional conclusion of the
novel. You have been warned. The third act of the novel actually is the
portion that deals with the Master trying to stop Kennedy’s assassination with
the added bonus of forcing Stevens to be the one who actually kills him if he
wants history to go back on course. This
action feels very much like something the Master would do, forcing someone to
do something completely awful, something that would haunt them for the rest of
their life, but without care for what happens.
This part of the novel isn’t completely downtrodden as Stevens finally
gets a triumph when he is able to speak with the people at UNIT and the Doctor. It is a series of sequences that shows in a
moment how much the Brigadier and the rest of UNIT actually care for the
civilians. The Doctor is also highly sympathetic as to Stevens’s plight as he
has lost everything. The big flaw is
however that Jo doesn’t appear.
To summarize, Who Killed Kennedy? Embodies an
experimental feel for writing a novel that would have been a very good range in
its own right. Bishop writes a
brilliantly paced story in a solid three act film like structure that lends
itself well for just about everything in the novel. He makes you feel sympathetic for Dodo and
have your heartstrings ripped out of your chest at her death halfway through
the novel. The only problem is that
between the first and second acts is a great sense of tonal whiplash that
brings the score down a little bit.
90/100
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