Doctor Who worth remembering: Who Killed Kennedy by David Bishop

Part conspiracy thriller, part Doctor Who continuity fest, Who Killed Kennedy is certainly an unusual novel.

(Photo by National Archive/Newsmakers)

The Wilderness Years gave us so many great Doctor Who novels. So is the 1996 book Who Killed Kennedy one of them? It turns out yes, but not without caution, let’s get into it a bit.

Up there on its throne wearing a crown, with the novels Just War and Mad Dogs and Englishmen on either side, sits Who Killed Kennedy as the most awkward to read in public Doctor Who novel. The classic diamond logo almost appearing to be interrupted by huge block letters asking the title’s question, with a color picture of the JFK assassination located at the bottom, just so the Dale Gribbles of the world will look at you reading this book and nod in approval.

But beyond that tells a story that was always going to be told at one point, one that was too interesting a concept not to be. A story of the invasions of Earth throughout the Doctor’s UNIT days told from the perspective of a reporter, and the cover-ups and intrigue that comes from this. Yes, Love & Monsters for the Third Doctor (or Marvels for the Third Doctor as the acknowledgments at the end point out).

Granted, if you’re of the belief that UNIT was not in fact a secret government organization and the public was probably aware of at least part of what they did, what with the public news broadcasts and the “WELCOME TO UNIT: ALIENS PLEASE USE BACK ENTRANCE” sign outside their building, this novel might not jell with you so much. But it does a good job of hand-waving away some of the material from the show that hurts it.

The story stars not anyone you’re familiar with, but rather James Stevens – a tabloid journalist who has worked his way up in the world. Suddenly, he gets a call to go investigate Ashbridge Cottage Hospital, hearing about a man being found with inhuman blood following a meteor shower. It’s there that he encounters Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, which is when his life begins to change… FOREVER.

UNIT – Another perspective

As the events of Spearhead from Space and the rest of Season 7 happen in the background, James continues his investigation into UNIT, and other secret organizations such as C19 and the Glasshouse. His continued meddling causes him to make enemies in high places. Despite multiple warnings, his journalistic integrity is too strong, and as these stories tend to go, some photos get leaked to his wife which causes her to leave him, and he loses his job and gets blacklisted from the newspaper community. Also beatings. Lots and lots of beatings.

Not that this deters him in any capacity. In fact, it motivates him further to expose UNIT to the world after spending 36 hours in the hospital after a massive beating by his wife’s father and the corrupt cops he employs. The ups and downs that James goes through are astounding, and his life isn’t gonna get much better from here. Did I mention the beatings?

Of course, we as the audience know UNIT aren’t really the bad guys here, so him going after them more than the Glasshouse or C19 is a bit of annoyance, although it is to ultimately serve the main twist of the book. Still, it’s made worse by characters in the book itself telling him he’s wrong about UNIT (like a pipe-smoking Liz Shaw, as P.R.O.B.E. was still on everyone’s mind) just for him to brush it off.

If James didn’t suffer so much, he’d hardly be the most endearing character in the book. Although, we do get a good “Could you not” from the Brigadier when he finally gets a chance to talk to him around Day of the Daleks.

A smaller focus

Granted, this focus is also just because there’s more about UNIT for David Bishop to write about. Rather than the quick mention of C19 in Time-Flight that I bet even you, yes you reading this, forgot about. And not everyone has read The Scales of Injustice either. No, it’s all understandable.

A point of contention for this book is that in order to establish an important character for later, it includes a small side story of sorts, about a soldier that enlists in UNIT sometime before The Mind of Evil, gets hospitalized by an Axon, and seeing as how he’s a good old fashioned God-fearing boy, properly goes crazy for a bit during The Dæmons. It honestly would be a more interesting story if it was expanded to book-length.

And while it doesn’t hurt the main plot of a journalist trying to expose UNIT to the world, a story from a UNIT soldier’s point of view just wets my whistle more. As far as playing with continuity goes, this seems the more logical route to have gone on, and I feel like its inclusion might curtail someone from attempting it again.

The treatment of Dodo

Unfortunately, this is again yet another novel where something terrible and sexual happens to Dodo. As I and my editor know, this is a thing that happens to Dodo a lot. Not sure why other than (alleged) sophomoric revenge for her being an “annoying” companion.

Still, this novel takes it a bit further than past efforts like in Salvation where, in an attempt to “explain” why Dodo acted like she did when she first entered the TARDIS, they decided she was almost sexually assaulted by an alien who thought he was an angel. Or The Man in the Velvet Mask, where, as I mentioned already, she is nude for a fair amount of it and then gets “something” not described very well, so for years fandom thought it was a fatal venereal disease.

Anyway, after being left mentally broken after The War Machines with only vague memories of her past that leads her to think she’s crazy, Dodo swings from mental institution to mental institution, getting shock therapy for fourteen months at one and almost getting assaulted by a lunatic at another (whom she kills). Or maybe it was the same institute. It’s all rather bad treatment of a former companion regardless.

It doesn’t end there either: she eventually ends up at the Glasshouse and all the horrors that entails. It causes her to become further unhinged before the Director of the Glasshouse says cryptic things to her that we the audience recognize but are lost on the characters in the story.

Dodo then becomes homeless for a while, living horribly, until the main character of the book comes to sweep her off her feet, where they both fall in love and have modest British sex. In context it’s fine, at the time it was fine, and at least this time she didn’t get infected with an alien virus, but nowadays it’s all rather fanfictiony.

And then a bad thing happens.

Naturally, considering the title, the novel does tie into the assassination of JFK. Does it mix real life with sci-fi continuity well?

(Photo by Three Lions/Getty Images)

Jarring ending?

Eventually, the book, which was all rather realistic, or as realistic as this type of thing can be, ends with a Doctor Who science-fiction scenario that, while not out of place, is incredibly jarring after 230 pages of investigation, corruption, and journalism. Like I get it, it’s set up really well, and we had to explain the title eventually, but still.

I’ve skipped a fair amount of explanation of what happens in the book, because, you know, despite everything I wrote that may sound bad or edgy, the book itself is ultimately good. It’s well written and there’s really only ONE use of continuity that’s eye-roll worthy, and to take an old phrase out of the basement, it really is a page-turner.

It’s engrossing enough that if I wasn’t reading several books at the same time (and also working another job between writing these articles), I would have finished this in a day. (As opposed to Falls the Shadow which would have most likely taken me three months either way.)

More from Winter is Coming

The treatment of Dodo isn’t something I’ll ever agree with, but I can look past that (protip she’s not real) for the good story it takes place in. Because of that, while I wouldn’t say Who Killed Kennedy is essential Doctor Who reading, I would include it in a list of must-read supplementals. Or if you like conspiracy novels, if that’s your bang then this is probably gonna be your favorite Doctor Who novel.

So, read it if you can, there’s a lot of notoriety about aspects of this book, and I can only really say the Dodo sections lived up to what I heard. But what I didn’t hear often enough, was that it was good.

At one point I wasn’t sure if I was going to do a review of this book (no real reason), but about 200 pages in the glue holding the cover to the spine finally got too old and came undone. My friend saw it as a sign, as if the book was alive and wanted to be read one last time and talk about it to a wider audience, but could tell I was uneasy handling it in public, so it willed its glue to age faster, to ease my worry.

I glued the cover back on, books aren’t alive.

What did you think of Who Killed Kennedy or the works of David Bishop? What do you think of the treatment of Dodo in the expanded universe? Should I write about the Eleventh Doctor novel Dead of Winter by James Goss, where one of our regulars gets shot in the face? Let us know in the comments below.