James Patterson, the king of the fast-paced thriller/mystery teamed up with former President Bill Clinton to write Clinton's debut novel, The President Is Missing. This was a book I read one summer siting in the gardens and parks of the Austrian capital of Vienna.
It delivers much of what you’d expect from a James Patterson novel with it's tense pacing and high-stakes national peril. For most of the novel, it's a taut thriller, pulling readers in during a national security crisis that threatens the fabric of the United States. However for me all that momentum and suspense unraveled half way through the book, why? The best thing about a thriller/mystery is when the ending is a surprise while at the same time making sense. Disappointingly a single sentence buried part way through the book gives away the ending.
I won't give it away here as it is only a single sentence so could easily be missed by the reader. However for me the sense of mystery was gone. I was no longer reading to find out what happens, I was reading to see how we would get there. At the same time, the idea that the villain is just as likely to be a close friend as they are to be an obvious enemy has become a bit of a cliché. A third way would have made the ending more thrilling and original.
That being said, this was a thriller I enjoyed with it giving a glimpse into the heart of the American political sphere, albeit in a fictional sense.
No comments:
Post a Comment