This is a political thriller, co-written by former US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Canadian crime author Louise Penny, and it came out just last year.

Ellen Adams, a 50-something widow and former owner of a huge media corporation, is now serving as the US secretary of state in the newly elected administration of President Douglas Williams (successor to the "delusional", "ego-driven and uniformed" Eric Dunn, who ran an administration of "near-criminal incompetence" that "screwed up everything it touched"...). Hers is a somewhat surprising appointment, Adams feels, as she used her media clout to support Williams's rival for the party nomination. And after the disastrous visit to South Korea that opens the book, she starts to wonder if she has been set up to fail.

But she doesn't have too long to worry about all that because very soon she's in the thick of an international terrorist plot involving nuclear materials. Its tentacles reach into the top echelons of the White House itself.


All the photos were taken in Tehran, 2000. Ellen Adams, somewhat surprisingly, visits Iran (supposedly under the radar, although plenty of people find out about it), and meets with the president and the supreme leader



So, what's to like?

It's a great read (or in my case, a great listen -- my version was superbly read by Joan Allen). A cross between a latter-day Le Carre novel, The West Wing, and Madeleine Albright's Madam Secretary, it would have been fun to discuss with my students, back in the days when I used to teach International Relations at university...

You just long to know the exact extent to which Clinton draws on her own experience... But indubitably, the fact that she really has peered behind many grimy curtains makes this work of fiction genuinely scary. "I loved State of Terror," says this reviewer, "but it is NOT escape reading. Everything about it is a rational American citizen’s worst nightmare."

My second plus is that the female characters are awesome. It's such a pleasure to have older women driving a thriller plot, and to see them portrayed as tough and intelligent, despite all the crap that gets thrown at them (they are routinely underestimated; their ideas are ignored, and then picked up later without acknowledgement; they're constantly judged on their appearance...) Ellen comes across as resilient, smart, courageous, and very, very human (a much warmer persona than Clinton herself ever managed to project). Betsy Jameson, Ellen's "counselor", is an inspired character: bright, loyal, short-fused, and exceptionally well versed in expletives.

Just as the friendship between Ellen and Betsy pays homage to Clinton's relationship with Betsy Johnson Ebeling, a friend since elementary school, so too Ellen Adams's character is partly modelled on Ellen Tauscher, undersecretary of state during Clinton's term as secretary of state. (Understandably, but unfortunately in this case, the Audible version doesn't include the acknowledgements, which are apparently well worth reading.)

Depicting women "like us" was important to both authors: "'It was kind of a mini-mission … these characters were not characters you would see often in a political book, certainly not a political thriller. And it was really important for us to put them at the centre of the action,' said Clinton."



Aside from the characterization, I also appreciated that there was an attempt at nuance. For all the criticism of the Alt-Right (and this movement is up there with crazed proliferators of fissile material, the Russian mafia, and several unsavoury militant Islamic organizations), there is at least some recognition that this state of affairs didn't spring out of nothing. The president's conversation with Ellen at the end of the novel (along the lines of "something must be done to help these people...") is a bit vapid, but at least it voices the idea that the ordinary Americans who have drifted further and further right are not just evil maniacs, but struggling citizens, whose confusion and pain and perception of powerlessness have made them easy targets for fakery and conspiracy theories.

From the point of view of plotting, I liked the fact that bad stuff is allowed to happen. The "good guys" don't find bombs until it's too late. Entire special-ops patrols get knocked out while on their mission. A lot of blood is shed, but it is mourned. And, as Mark Lawson points out, the novel is "geopolitically thoughtful...: if the most serious potential threats lie within your country, is there a case for co-operating with nations usually hostile to yours?" Definitely, I would say...

Fascinating, too, from our perspective today, is the portrayal of the Russian government... President "Ivanov" is a chilling character, and comes across much worse than the usual go-to villains from Iran and Pakistan... On that note, I also liked the way that Clinton and Penny draw on Persian ideas and stories (the Azhi Dahaka, for example, is a fascinating Persian dragon). OK, it smacks a little of tokenism, but at least it's a bit of a nod to the mythology and wisdom of others.



And the minuses?

Well, it was maybe a bit too much of a credulity-straining romp at times...

And, enjoyable though they were, there were perhaps just a few too many digs at the previous administration... When Clinton makes this kind of pronouncement, for example, it is just a teeny bit disingenuous: "'All of our characters are fictional. I want to make that absolutely clear,' said Clinton. 'But of course, some of their characteristics and behaviour are inspired by real people.'... Dunn is not based on any former president we might be familiar with, but 'a fictional version of a president who, in four years, showed us that you can have a president who was manipulated by foreign powers, who was indifferent to institutions and the rule of law.'"

For my taste, there was also a little too much about loving your country... Yawn... "Countries", in my opinion, are not entities that you "love".

And, despite making valiant attempts not to come across as US-worshipping (moles at the highest levels of the administration definitely don't make for a good look), there is still this patriotic quality that grates on me slightly. Yes, there is some acknowledgement that others love their countries too, and that, like other countries, the United States of America has some distinctly discreditable stuff on its conscience. Nevertheless, America is assumed to be ultimately on the right side of everything, and the "when-we-do-bad-stuff-it's-OK" attitude is still present. A slightly more critical edge might have conflicted with Clinton's former roles, but would have added some welcome additional acid.

Having said all of which, I'd watch the movie, I'd read a sequel, and I'd happily dip a toe into Louise Penny's Armand Gamache series...