New York City. The late 1950s. Live TV. When a prime-time quiz show win could be the difference between poverty and prosperity…
And Peter Roland, making his way through the levels of difficulty, toward a half-mill win and stardom, is the perfect contestant for audience appeal and high ratings: Young, clean-cut, photogenic, smart. Especially in the wake of all the attention the producers and their team pour into burnishing that on-camera image. But his real life is proving as challenging.
Because unknown even to the image-makers—Peter Roland is a man of long-held secrets, whose ambition has invited a series of unexpected choices; some tempting, some troubling, all fateful. The wrong secret revealed, the wrong choice made, and success can instantly become scandal—for him and for the future of the very quiz show investing in his participation. Which makes The Big Question more than just the final-round, big money ask…but whether Peter Roland has it in him to navigate a prolifically perilous path to victory.
“You don’t like snide, jaded narrator-protagonist Peter Roland upon meeting him. Not long after, you do like him. And then you don’t. And then you do. He absolutely has a sincere moral center. Yet he always weighs whether or not it will serve him. He will sometimes do the right thing for the wrong reason. He thinks about sex, but also thinks about its risk factor. He doesn’t play by the rules because of their inherent rightness; but rather because he sees the value in them. And he’ll easily weigh the value of breaking them. So why the hell are we rooting for him? Because he speaks to our own ambivalence.” David Spencer, from his Afterword to this new edition.
John Kenneth /
Crime Fiction, Historical
