The Solomon Scandals (second edition)
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The Solomon Scandals is a provocative Washington suspense novel inspired by now-forgotten history. A deadly high-rise collapse happened in Northern Virginia, and a U.S. senator and a Supreme Court justice held stakes in a CIA-occupied building.
In the novel, an audacious reporter for a crooked newspaper investigates the darker side of a popular real estate tycoon. One of the tycoon's rickety buildings houses hundreds of workers for a shadowy bureaucracy. The reporter's incendiary discoveries compel him to hide his related memoir for a century to shield those on the scandals' fringes.
David H. Rothman's complex tale teems with memorable characters (some caught up in a classic Washington dilemma-friendship vs. duty):
--Seymour "Sy" Solomon, the folksy, self-made real estate magnate, buys politicians but does so with far more class than the typical business buccaneer.
--George McWilliams is a mysterious editor wealthy enough to have built a mini Versailles.
--Wendy Blevin is a powerful but inwardly fragile gossip columnist from an Old Money family that has already suffered its share of tragedies.
--Margo Danialson, a B.A. in medieval studies, is unhappily tethered to a corrupt federal agency.
--Dr. Rebecca Kitiona-Fenton, a multiracial feminist, outspokenly annotates the newspaper memoir of her white great-granduncle, Jonathan Stone.
This second edition of Scandals contains a revealing essay on historical connections, underscoring Rothman's reporting leading to a Congressional investigation and NBC and ABC exposés. Supreme Court ethics controversies make Scandals especially timely.
Rothman blends history, ethics, and intrigue. His style is hardboiled and often satirical. Although Scandals includes strong language and some sexist and racist dialogue, Dr. Kitiona-Fenton's endnotes provide additional context in the second edition.
Ted Scheinman, reviewing Rothman's first edition for the Washington City Paper, wrote: "We get to relish his chatty first-person narrator spinning characterizations of D.C. with the same dark zeal Hammett held for Frisco or Chandler had for Los Angeles."
Kirkus Reviews says the second edition "captures the aura of dark nihilism in some quarters of the political world with great power … This is a riveting work, mordantly insightful and surprisingly entertaining."
Note: Scandals is a character-driven suspense novel, not a "non-stop action" thriller.
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David H. Rothman, author of The Solomon Scandals, didn’t just research and imagine his historical suspense fiction. He lived it.
Rothman was alive in the 1970s to chronicle the corruption within the federal office leasing program. His revelations triggered a congressional investigation and made the NBC and ABC evening newscasts.
A great-grandfather was a Jewish tax collector for the Tsar. In a brush with authoritarianism closer to home, Rothman once ended up in the juvenile detention room of an Ohio police station for asking the wrong questions about Nixon, Billy Graham, and Vietnam at a news conference.
He is also the author of Drone Child: A Novel of War, Family, and Survival, about a genius child soldier. As a writer, he is drawn to dark themes and satire around social issues—and to heroes who fight back, like Jon Stone, the protagonist of Scandals.
Rothman grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and worked for the Lorain Journal in Ohio. He and his girlfriend live in the Washington area.
You can follow Rothman on Facebook via @davidrothman, where he spends more time being himself than promoting his books. For more information, go to SolomonScandals.com. Rothman’s email is
