Chiefs

by James Rogers

The initial year of U.S. President Cameron Archer’s first term in office has been lackluster at best. The economic stagnation and high unemployment he promised to overcome continue to haunt the nation. Respected polls report that a majority of the population thinks the country is going in the wrong direction. A small group decides to do something about it. During the President’s State of the Union Address, four stealth cruise missiles destroy the Capitol Building. Flamboyant Secretary of State Sarah Lander, in London to finalize a favorable trade deal, is nearly assassinated in a coordinated attack, which the English press widely—and inaccurately—reports as having ‘succeeded.’ Another cabinet secretary, absent from the State of the Union Address to accommodate the Law of Presidential Succession, suffers a suspicious, fatal heart attack. Investment banker and part-time undercover FBI and CIA operative Tom West, who is in London on business, stumbles on and thwarts a second attempt on Lander’s life. There begins an odyssey that sees West and Lander, who knew each other years earlier in college, battle multiple attempts to usher them into the next world. At home, the United States plunges into a Constitutional crisis. The Governors convene and appoint the reluctant Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Robert Marlow, to be Acting President until the country can hold a Special Election. The rush of events puts people and forces on a collision course whose resolution is the shocking climax of this intense tale.

290 pages, Paperback

First published December 3, 2011

Reviews

[Dana]

Another thriller where most of the top leaders of the US government are wiped out. The person who should assume office has to go on the run and fight her (note that) way back to Washington to assume her rightful place.

[Luci Brehm · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was like an episode of 24. Good story but too many mistakes and way too much going on.

[Rosemarie Conner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked the conspiracy theory plot. It kept you wanting to read. Although there was a lot of jumping around. Never expected the ending.