The President is Missing

I'm experimenting with reviewing at the moment. Reviewing what I've read so far at 50% (well, 45, but close enough) and then reviewing again at the end to see how my opinion might differ.

I'll start by saying I've never read any political books before. Unless you class Feed by Mira Grant, but that's also a post-apocalyptic book with zombies so I'm not sure I count it! I love The West Wing, so figured I'd give this a try.

I actually pre-ordered the book back in March, so was pretty excited when it arrived. The book design definitely added to that excitement, but I daren't judge a book by its cover! I know a lot of people hate Clinton, but you can't say he's not got an interesting story of his presidency. I hoped he'd bring that drama, but also the knowledge with him.

I loved the start of this. I've read other reviews that say it was too slow, but that's exactly why I love it. You get the sense that the president screwed up in the first sentence, or maybe the second. You've got the house select committee and the metaphor of sharks. I feel like the beginning of the novel is all Clinton. This is where his insider knowledge comes in, and I enjoyed it. Although I wouldn't say it's that inside. I've seen things like that before. It's nothing overly new. You have got immediate questions about what's going on, and how that's going to affect the plot.

A little later on, you've then got where I stared to lose faith a little. The action starts, and it's... I don't know. I love myself some good action, but when you've got the President shooting bad guys. It just seems... wrong? The whole plot of the President being the only one who can fix the impending cyber attack is over the top to me. Stretches my ability to believe it. I get that it's fiction, but is fiction not grounded in truth somewhere. Wouldn't the president simply get the top CIA operatives on it, rather than himself? Getting away from his Secret Service agents by ordering them not to follow him, and meeting someone who he's got zero background information on, and could quite easily have killed him multiple times? Maybe it's explained more later on why he's so willing to do this. Why it can't be anyone but him, but right now, it's not sitting too well with me. I find the secret code word to be a little stupid too “Dark Ages”. I don't know the answer yet, but I'm assuming someone hacks into the energy grid and cuts the power across the entirety of the US? And that's the big bad the president has to stop. Maybe he needs to stop being secretive and start informing at least a few more people about the threat, so they can sure up defences and begin planning for events if the worst did happen. I'm not talking about telling the public to great mass hysteria, but come on!

I'm still going to continue reading. I'll be back when I finish.

I'm back, after finishing it! So I was a little off with my theory of Dark Ages being just about electricity. I won't go into it too much because spoilers, but that's one hell of a virus! I think the big reveal of the traitor was obvious. I don't know if it was supposed to be, but it seemed obvious from back when the traitor was first discussed. So the big reveal didn't pack as much punch as expected. I'll admit the way the President goes about catching the traitor, is pretty cool, and brings the tension levels to a critical level.

The character of the President was a tad cliche. Ex-military, adding depth with a wife that passed away, no thought to his safety, much to the annoyance of the secret service. Seemed a little cliche.

The characters I did like were Carrie and Augie. I don't know how to talk about them without spoilers, but how they're portrayed is much more interesting to me.

Whilst I know I've been pretty critical, I did actually really enjoy the book. It was well-paced, and there was enough slower parts to catch my breath without the pace dropping to a crawl.

Overall, I'd recommend it. It's not the first book I've read with a character like President Duncan, or the first I've predicted the ending. It is entertaining and fast-paced, which makes up for it. And the design with the red page gilding on the edition I had.

3.5 stars. I think Clinton probably wrote about 5%. Fun read, but formulaic as you would expect from a mass market thriller. Interesting premise for sure.

I've never read James Patterson but I was mostly intrigued by this Clinton partnership. It's your regular potboiler pulp fiction novel where the world is about to end and the public doesn't know that. You can clearly see the parts where Bill Clinton contributed and there are plenty of similarities and callbacks to his presidency. He relishes the opportunity to bash the House Speaker while upholding the goodness of the President in standing alone against the nation's enemies. Perhaps it doesn't ring true in 2018 but keeps the readers' attention. The pace is decent and plot twists are believable. Overall, it is a better page turner than Dan Brown's more recent works.