DC By the Book

Excerpt: “The wind was beginning to roar now. Stoplights rocked on their cables, and the traffic signs rattled wildly. Snow flew at his headlights in a steady, horizontal stream. Across the slate-gray river, the city was invisible. Only the red light atop the Washington Monument showed itself, blinking on and off, like an evil eye. He drove directly to his office in Foggy Bottom, taking the Fourteenth Street Bridge to Independence Avenue and then heading west. The power had failed, leaving what little traffic there was to crawl hesitantly through one blind intersection after another.”

Excerpt: “Most of the time, he ran along the C&O Canal, which began a few blocks from his house in Georgetown.”

Excerpt: “He stood up and went to the window. It was twilight, and so cold that the snow had stopped. Behind the Pentagon the sky was a rare and deep sapphire color that glowed with almost supernatural clarity. The floodlit dome of the Capitol shone with cold brilliance, its ridges and curves and details so precisely cut that it reminded him of the ivory carved and sold in Chinatown. Above the dome an attenuated moon hung amid a jumble of stars. The stars glittered with such vitality that it was easy to imagine the universe enclosed by a gigantic dome—visible only where the metal had been pierced to allow a glimpse of heaven’s glory.”