This was the choice of our book club: Democrats Abroad, Belgium (DAB) and when we met last week we Skyped with David from Ohio. We had a round table discussion and learned that David is preparing a sequel, so we can't wait for that! David was not only prescient and eerily prophetic about our current political crisis, but he knows from where he speaks: he's an old political hand at this and we all get an insiders look into the crimes, culprits, and cover-ups that poison our politics and threaten and endanger our Democracy.

"Oh, crap," I said to myself as I discovered David Pepper wrote a book, one day before I was to meet with him informally over coffee. "I should download it and read it quick as I rode from my home in Dayton to Columbus. "I can skim this in an hour," I thought, expecting the same sort of political recap book most politicians put out.

I was wrong. I was very wrong. The first sentence caught my eye, the ensuing chapters and the story the protagonist, Jack Sharpe, started unravelling was captivating. It took me two re-reads and weeks of slow reading to finish.

"Few things lift my spirit like a good obituary." I was hooked.

I can't give away the ending, but as a former newspaper man, I can't help but wonder how much of the true story of any news story gets left on the editorial cutting room floor. Before the current POTUS occupied the Oval Office, one might think this yarn Pepper spins would be a fantastic conspiracy, but as we all watch the events unfold in real time, one wonders how much is fact cloaked in a work of fiction.

Just as Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" was inspired by his political appointments, so too is this fictional story presented to us as a narrative more true than the news we watch, the newspaper stories we read. This is one story that reads too close to the bone to be fiction. Yet, it is... right David Pepper?

As a political writer and former journalist, I was impressed by the details. Pepper clearly understands politics, voting systems, and the human failings of so many politicians. The plot is so timely, I have to wonder if the guy's psychic. And yes, he does explain how Russians can fix our elections.

I liked this book and recommend it.
Interestingly, it was written before Russians interfered in our Presidential election.
The story is that a Russian oligarch purchased and corrupted a US voting machine company in order to rig the vote in enough swing districts to achieve a GOP house majority which would then approve the oligarch's pipeline. Not at all hard to believe.
Its strength was the way that it revealed who did what and made it unclear who were the bad guy(s). Its weaknesses were that the writing could have been more even and better edited. Its ridiculous weakness was the protagonist's obliviousness to personal danger.
I will avoid spoilers, but there is an inside source who is leaking documents and evidence to the reporter hero and said hero is apparently uninterested in who the leaker is and why he or she is leaking.
I found the ending odd. This is when we learn about who is doing the leaking. I don't actually think that every single loose end was tied up. The author seemed to have run out of gas and just wanted to finish.
All in, the book is worth your time and is topical about how an election might be corrupted.
I hope that Mr. Pepper continues to write.

Pepper, an Ohio Congressman, writes a political thriller that was recommended by the Wall Street Journal. It is his first book and was published just six months before the 2016 election. Some of his plot twists foretell events leading up to our recent election, including the involvement of Russia: Accusation that the Russians influenced our elections (Hillary) and the Russian purchase of a uranium company in Canada a few years ago.

The story moves along, contains some surprises, and is a good, light read. I found difficulty with:

Pepper's jumping back and forth between "before election" and "after election" chapters.
Some dialogue that was less than creative.
Too much repetition of the story.
A few writing weaknesses like using "dessert" instead of "desert."

Pepper should write another novel with a different slant. He obviously knows state and federal political climates so he should have lots of ideas. I sure hope that some of the stories he tells are not true; for instance, he tells of the windowless building that Congressmen, their staffs, and other politicians journey to each afternoon to spend hours dialing for dollars!