The Manchurian Candidate
1st edition
Author	Richard Condon
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Thriller novel
Publisher	McGraw-Hill
Publication date	1959
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	311 pp
ISBN	1-56858-270-6
OCLC Number	52409655
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 21
LC Classification	PS3553.O487 M36 2003

The Manchurian Candidate (1959) by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent US political family who has been brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party. The novel has twice been cinematically adapted, in 1962 and 2004.

[edit] Plot

Captain Bennett Marco, Sergeant Raymond Shaw, and the rest of their infantry platoon are kidnapped during the Korean War in 1952. They are taken to Manchuria, and are brainwashed to believe that Sgt. Shaw saved their lives in combat — for which the Army awards him the Medal of Honor.

Years after the war, Marco, now back in the United States working as an intelligence officer, begins suffering the recurring nightmare of Raymond Shaw murdering two of his comrades, all clinically observed by Chinese and Russian intelligence officials. When Marco learns that another soldier from the platoon also has been suffering the same nightmare, he sets to uncovering the mystery and its meaning.

It is revealed that the Communists have been using Raymond Shaw as a sleeper agent, a guiltless assassin subconsciously activated by seeing the “Queen of Diamonds” playing card while playing solitaire. As such, he obeys orders, which he then forgets. Raymond Shaw’s Soviet secret service controller is his domineering mother, Eleanor, a ruthless power broker working with the Communists to execute a "palace coup d’état" and quietly overthrow the U.S. Government with the "Manchurian Candidate": her husband, McCarthy-esque Senator Johnny Iselin.

[edit] See also

• Assassinations in fiction
• Brainwashing
• Conspiracy thriller
• James Carne
• Mind control
• Project MKULTRA

[edit] References

• Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 110. ISBN 0-911682-20-1. 

[edit] External links

• Photos of the first edition of The Manchurian Candidate

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