In James Patterson’s Blow Back, You’ll Believe a President Can Go Off the Rails
Can you really go wrong reading a novel with the name of James Patterson on the cover?
For the second novel in my research into Grocery Store books, I selected a thriller by Patterson and Brendan DuBois, Blow Back. Say what you want about Patterson’s output, but the man knows a good story when he sees it, and he and his team can write remarkably good loglines. For this one, it’s: An American President goes Insane.
It’s been quite awhile since I last read a political/military thriller, but what I got was what I expected: multiple POVs, multiple threads, all leading to a grand finale. This book delivered on all fronts.
Like many good stories, we start with an action scene. Benjamin Lucas is in South Africa on a mission. The problem is that he gets made. What I particularly enjoyed are all the little details Benjamin relates—how he tries to evade the bad guys—before and after he is made as a spy.
But his story is the equivalent to a pre-credits sequence in a James Bond film. No sooner is he captured than the action turns back two months. Liam Grey and Noa Himel, both CIA operatives, are sitting in the White House. Keegan Barrett is six months into his term and he has a job for them. You see, Barrett is also a former CIA spy as well as the agency’s former director. He knows the nature of America’s enemies, but he also knows all the red tape (read: laws) that prevent a vigorous American response to global threats.
So the president has a plan: create two teams who operate and report solely to him. These two teams will be off-the-books, conduct their missions on both foreign and domestic soil, and take out enemies. Liam gets the foreign assignment while Noa stays in America. They question the legality of the orders—they come from the president—yet they follow them.
Gradually, however, their doubts begin to bubble to the surface, especially when Barrett starts talking more in the singular (“You are helping me”) rather than the greater good. But who will believe them? Who can help them? And how much trouble are they in? Quite a bit, and things get really interesting when new CIA director, Hannah Abrams, gets into the action.
It’s a Thriller But It’s Still About People
The action is intense and the pace is breakneck with enough tangents and background to make the reality of something like this unsettlingly real. That’s what you want in a thriller and Patterson and DuBois deliver the goods.
But what I came to really appreciate were how they handled side characters. Whenever one of our leads would meet a side character who might play a small but decisive role, the authors would give a short biography of that side character. In the past (and maybe I just wasn’t reading certain books), authors seemed not to care who this random person manning a station was. All that was necessary was for the lead character to call them and get them to do something.
Patterson and DuBois take a different approach. Our leads do need to call a random person manning a station but we get a biography of that person. It’s not long, but it’s long enough for us to get a deeper understanding of who that person is and why they do what they do. Maybe that kind of thing is standard nowadays in political thrillers, but, like I said, it’s been a long time since I’ve read one.
Oh, and one of them in particular? Excellent. I started the chapter thinking one thing and then had my expectations completely turned on its head. That’s what I want when I’m reading a book like this.
As the story went on, I began to think about the ending. Given the premise, how do the lead characters take on the most powerful man in the world and come out on the other side? Well, you’ll have to read the book to find out, but I thoroughly enjoyed the ride.
P.S., As I continue to read books that I saw in the grocery store, I’ve already finished my next one. It’s a legal thriller. Tune in next week to read about it.