Day of Reckoning: A Novel

by Ralph de Toledano

Overview

First published in 1955, Day of Reckoning by Ralph de Toledano, author of Seeds of Treason, is a novel based on the 1943 assassination of Carlo Tresca, an Italian-American newspaper editor, orator, and labor organizer who was a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World during the 1910s.

The murder of an idealistic anarchist prompts an inquiry by Paul Castelar, an honest newspaperman and a veteran of the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War.

He is drawn in by Gina Farrel, the murdered man’s niece, who comes to him convinced that the same political gangster who killed her uncle is now after her…

A gripping read!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789126846
Publisher:	Muriwai Books
Publication date:	07/23/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	156
File size:	686 KB

About the Author

Ralph de Toledano (1916-2007) was a major figure in the conservative movement in the United States throughout the second half of the 20th century. A friend of President Richard Nixon, he was a journalist and editor of Newsweek and the National Review, and the author of twenty-six books, including two novels and a book of poetry. He also wrote about music, particularly jazz.

Born on August 17, 1916 in Tangiers, Morocco, to Simy (Nahon), a former news correspondent, and Haim Toledano, a businessman and journalist, his parents were both Sephardic Jews and American citizens. The family moved to New York when he was five years old.

A proficient violinist from childhood, he attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School and the Juilliard School. He graduated from Columbia University in 1938 with a degree in literature and philosophy. In 1940, he became editor of the Socialist Party of America’s magazine, The New Leader.

During WWII, he was drafted and became an anti-aircraft gunner before being transferred to the Office of Strategic Services and trained for covert work in Italy, although he was never sent.

After the war, he pursued a career in journalism, joining Newsweek in 1948. In 1950 he became a Republican and met Nixon during his coverage of Nixon’s 1950 Senate campaign, during which Toledano addressed crowds and Nixon introduced him as the author of Seeds of Treason, which Toledano co-wrote in 1950 with Victor Lasky and which covers the perjury trial of Alger Hiss, a man accused of being a Soviet spy.

He was among the founders of National Review in 1955, and in 1960 began a column for the King Features Syndicate. An avid scholar of jazz, he turned back to his first passion of music during the latter half of his long career at National Review and wrote a music review column.

In 2005, he became commander of the National Press Club, a post he held until his death in Bethesda, Maryland, on February 3, 2007, at the age of 90.