Jan Kjellin reviewed To Kill the President by Sam Bourne
Review of 'To Kill the President' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
I usually don't care much for this genre. Fast paced, easy reads that leave little to nothing to reminisce about afterwards. And literarily, this certainly fits the bill. It's also awkwardly political in the sense that it's about he-who-must-not-be-named and the people surrounding him.
But just as it's awkwardly political, it's also frighteningly realistic in it's descriptions of the state of too much of the western world today. There is a long monologue by the character McNamara at the end of the novel that eerily explains the headless beast that has somehow managed to gain enough power to generate the notion of it being unstoppable.
Bourne/Freedland provides no answers as to how this beast can be stopped. He just points out that no course of action seems to be able to do the trick. The headless beast seems invincible:
Kill the president - the beast wins
Don't kill the president …
I usually don't care much for this genre. Fast paced, easy reads that leave little to nothing to reminisce about afterwards. And literarily, this certainly fits the bill. It's also awkwardly political in the sense that it's about he-who-must-not-be-named and the people surrounding him.
But just as it's awkwardly political, it's also frighteningly realistic in it's descriptions of the state of too much of the western world today. There is a long monologue by the character McNamara at the end of the novel that eerily explains the headless beast that has somehow managed to gain enough power to generate the notion of it being unstoppable.
Bourne/Freedland provides no answers as to how this beast can be stopped. He just points out that no course of action seems to be able to do the trick. The headless beast seems invincible:
Kill the president - the beast wins
Don't kill the president - the beast wins
Point out his constant lies - the beast wins
Say nothing - the beast wins
Fight the beast - the beast wins
Don't fight the beast - the beast wins
This nightmarish view permeates the entire novel, up until the very end. And even there, in those final pages, no light shines at the horizon. A faint glimmer of hope, maybe. But is it enough?
The prospects look bleak. In the novel as well as in real life.