 |
The year is 2024. In the midst of a heated presidential election campaign, the elderly Democratic candidate suffers a severe stroke that leaves him incapacitated. Vice President Harris, a woman who has been largely excluded from the president's inner circle, assumes the powers of the office. Sensing an opportunity, Vladimir Putin launches a devastating attack on Ukraine using chemical weapons. As the American president is given last rites, Belarus and Russia send tanks over their borders into Ukraine in the hopes of seizing the capital city.
Meanwhile, Harris faces mutiny from both members of her cabinet and leaders of the opposition party, who are keen to discredit her in advance of the upcoming election, when she will be competing against a former businessman (and former president) known only as "Mr. T." Harris must tread lightly, knowing that open war between Russia and NATO would likely mean the end of civilization. Seeking to rebuff Putin's advances without sparking a larger conflagration, she sends U.S. tanks against the Russians and Belarusians near the Ukraine border to halt their pincer attack. Initially, the operation appears successful. With Russia facing defeat, Putin's rule is threatened by dissent among his own ministers. Receiving word that her predecessor has been declared dead, Harris formally takes the Oath of Office—and, within moments, is faced with a challenge no president before her has ever faced.
Moyé's counterfactual narrative of the 2024 election is wildly entertaining, a rare feat for a political thriller. He displays enough knowledge of internal government and defense maneuverings to make the story feel credible, while also inserting enough uncertainty to keep the outcome of events in suspense. Many stories attempt to keep their audience invested through world-ending stakes, but few succeed. This one does because the reader senses that the novel could very well end with the world in ruins, and even if the worst doesn't transpire, we suspect that not every city in America will emerge unscathed. The effect is rather like watching a car crash and being unable to look away. But Moyé is also savvy enough to make the stakes personal by portraying a president who is vulnerable and conflicted, fraught with private doubts and regret. Whatever one's partisan leanings, it's easy to feel worried for her and to hope for her success.
Not everything works. For example, late in the book, there's a televised debate between Harris and Mr. T. that strains the bounds of realism. While Mr. T. scarcely speaks, Harris delivers several pages of monologue stating the centrist liberal worldview in a scolding tone that many of the fictional viewers at home would likely have found off-putting. On the more positive side, the book lauds the contributions of Jewish people to American life while also acknowledging the genocidal nature of virulent antisemitism—a welcome perspective in a time when old hatreds are stirring. Most remarkably, perhaps, the book offers an impressive amount of moral and historical instruction without ever neglecting its first mandate: to entertain. This is the sort of book that one reads in a sitting or two, barely aware of the passage of time, both frightened and dazzled by the unnervingly plausible scenario the author has painted.