Stephen King’s monumental work is a time-travel thriller centered on one compelling question: what if you could prevent JFK’s assassination? The novel follows Jake Epping, a high school teacher who discovers a portal to 1958 and is given the mission to stop Lee Harvey Oswald.
King masterfully intertwines suspenseful storytelling with meticulous historical research as Jake builds a new life in the past while tracking the enigmatic Oswald. The novel explores profound questions about fate, the malleability of history, and the unintended consequences of even the noblest actions.
Considered a masterpiece of postmodern fiction, Don DeLillo’s Libra plunges into the psyche of Lee Harvey Oswald. The novel imagines Oswald as a conflicted and marginal figure caught in the gears of a larger, shadowy conspiracy he only dimly perceives.
DeLillo seamlessly merges documented facts with dazzling literary invention, exploring the historical forces and personal failings that propelled Oswald toward Dallas. It is a haunting and compelling meditation on chance, conspiracy, and the creation of history itself.
James Ellroy’s American Tabloid is a savage reimagining of the years leading up to the assassination. With a telegraphic, brutal, and profane style, Ellroy weaves a tale of corruption connecting the CIA, the Mafia, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Kennedys.
The novel follows three fictional characters—an FBI agent, a CIA operative, and an ex-cop—as they navigate a violent underworld of political intrigue and organized crime. Ellroy presents the assassination not as a singular event, but as the bloody culmination of a decade of greed, lust, and betrayal.
In this classic spy thriller, former CIA operative Charles McCarry offers a chillingly plausible theory for the assassination. His protagonist, agent Paul Christopher, rejects the official lone-gunman story and conducts his own covert investigation.
His perilous quest leads him to a shocking conclusion: that Kennedy's murder was an act of retaliation orchestrated by the family of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, who had been assassinated weeks earlier in a U.S.-backed coup. McCarry’s insider knowledge of the intelligence world lends the narrative a gripping authenticity.
A blistering political satire, Winter Kills dives headfirst into the paranoia and conspiracy surrounding the assassination of a beloved president. Nineteen years after his brother, President Tim Kegan, was murdered, Nick Thirkield is prompted to investigate a deathbed confession that points to a conspiracy.
His search for the truth uncovers a tangled web of deceit involving his own powerful, ruthless father and a host of corrupt figures. Condon’s novel is a darkly comic and cynical look at the unimaginable depths of power and corruption in America.
This novel presents a fictionalized, behind-the-scenes account of the Warren Commission’s investigation. The story is told through the eyes of a young, idealistic lawyer working for the commission who begins to notice inconsistencies, contradictions, and suppressed evidence.
As he digs deeper, he finds himself at odds with his superiors, who are determined to reach a predetermined conclusion. The Commission offers a unique and compelling perspective on the assassination, focusing not on the conspirators but on the flawed official process meant to find the truth.
Drawing on his expertise as a Cold War-era journalist, Tim Sebastian crafts an intricate espionage thriller built around the assassination. The plot is set in motion when a retired KGB general offers a shocking secret to a CIA agent: evidence that the Soviets were involved in JFK’s murder.
The novel unfolds as a tense cat-and-mouse game between American and Soviet intelligence agencies, each trying to manipulate the explosive information for their own ends. It’s a persuasive “what-if” scenario grounded in the political realities of the time.
The novelization of the classic 1973 conspiracy film, Executive Action was one of the first works of fiction to popularize the theory of a high-level plot to kill Kennedy.
The story lays out a meticulous case for a conspiracy involving right-wing industrialists, disillusioned intelligence operatives, and military figures who believed Kennedy’s policies were a threat to the nation.
The novel details their recruitment of scapegoats and manipulation of evidence to ensure Lee Harvey Oswald would be seen as the lone assassin.
This meticulously researched speculative thriller blends fact and fiction to explore a compelling conspiracy theory. Wilcox centers his narrative on a real historical figure, René A. Dussaq, a multi-talented CIA operative and actor who reportedly harbored a deep animosity toward Kennedy.
The novel builds a plausible scenario in which Dussaq’s skills and motivations place him at the center of the assassination plot. The vivid narrative underscores the intense rivalries and distrust between political figures and intelligence agents in the early 1960s.
Offering a creative genre mashup, this novel places the JFK assassination squarely within the Doctor Who universe. The story follows investigative reporter James Stevens as he uncovers troubling truths about Kennedy’s death that point toward extraterrestrial involvement and shadowy forces manipulating history.
Blending established historical details with science-fiction elements, the book provides a uniquely imaginative take on the event, appealing to fans of sci-fi and historical conspiracy alike.