Night of Camp David begins with a standard plot: a junior senator summoned to a mysterious conference with the President, and informed that he is being considered for the vice-presidential nomination. Predictably, the senator—a handsome, lazy lout—has a lush lady friend hidden away, though his own wife—as demonstrated later when she doffs her pajamas and goes swimming by moonlight—is adequately endowed. Predictably, our hero finds himself torn between newly born ambitions and old lusts, and quickly votes for the former.

So far, almost the archetypal political novel, complete with worldly-wise lawyers and cynical political advisers. But what gives Mr. Knebel's tale a fresh twist is the personality of the President, who slowly reveals himself as a top-drawer paranoid with delusions of persecution and grandeur….

The story is swift-moving, and the characters, though not studies in depth, seem plausible enough. There is even a certain...