The plot line is simple: SCOTUS candidate meets mayhem in DC. But this thriller about Supreme Court nominee Edmund Roland (“Rollie”) Madison and his sometimes ambivalent quest for confirmation unfolds with plenty of twists and turns, not all of them political.

There’s plenty of politics, though, and for many readers, that’s the draw of SHINING CITY, a debut novel by Tom Rosenstiel, a former national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.

"Along with strong plotting, Rosenstiel does a good job of describing the grandstanding that takes place behind the scenes and on the Senate floor..."

President Jim Nash, a Democrat, picks Judge Madison, an iconoclastic candidate whose positions make both parties wary, as his Supreme Court nominee. He asks Washington “fixers” Peter Rena and Randi Brooks --- one Republican, the other Democrat ---  to investigate and then prep the candidate. Rena, an ex-army investigator, and Brooks, a lawyer, work well together but have very different theories about why Nash chose them and what Madison’s candidacy represents. Rena believes that the candidate, a federal judge, is hiding something and insists on tracking down his college classmates to find the truth. Brooks believes Madison is too independent for the President to support, but dutifully preps him for his Senate hearings. The process is made easier by the presence of Madison’s daughter, Vic, who is a savvy lawyer in her own right.

Meanwhile, a serial killer has literally set his sights on Madison, though why he is obsessed with the judge is at first unclear. It is also the part of the book that, paradoxically, propels the page-turning even as it tethers the story to a more predictable plot. Ex-con Robbie Johnson shares a past with the judge that Rena must uncover before Johnson kills again.  As he is closing in on his prey during the judge’s Senate confirmation hearings, new revelations surface about their mutual history. The denouement, while long anticipated, is masterfully orchestrated, with a satisfying outcome for all.

Along with strong plotting, Rosenstiel does a good job of describing the grandstanding that takes place behind the scenes and on the Senate floor, and he deftly handles his characters’ ambivalence about doing the right thing in the face of political expediency. His two protagonists, Rena and Brooks, work well as a team and are likely to surface again. That’s something to eagerly anticipate.