Resurrection Day

by Brendan DuBois

In the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, the U.S. has been crippled into a second-rate power dependent upon European allies for survival. In the shadow of this devastating chaos, a reporter stumbles across a man with secrets of the great war's origins--and lies about Kennedy's death.

Genres: Alternate History, Fiction, Science Fiction, Thriller, Historical Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Dystopia

480 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Brendan DuBois of New Hampshire is the award-winning author of twenty novels and more than 150 short stories. His novel, "Resurrection Day," won the Sidewise Award for Best Alternative History Novel of the Year.

In addition to his thrillers, Brendan DuBois is the author of the Lewis Cole mystery series.

He is currently working on a number of writing projects with New York Times bestselling author James Patterson,

He is also a one-time "Jeopardy!" gameshow champion, and a co-winner of the trivia gameshow "The Chase."

His short fiction has appeared in Playboy, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Analog, and numerous other magazines and anthologies including “The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century,” published in 2000 by Houghton-Mifflin. Another one of his short stories appeared in in "The Year's Best Science Fiction 22nd Annual Collection" (St. Martin's Griffin, 2005) edited by Gardner Dozois

His short stories have twice won him the Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and have also earned him three Edgar Allan Poe Award nominations from the Mystery Writers of America. Visit his website at www.BrendanDuBois.com.
Show less

Reviews

[Skip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good alternative history book. The Cuban Missile crisis is not averted; instead, the Soviets launch 10 missiles, causing devastation in a number of cities and the U.S. destroys the Soviet Union. Ten years later, the U.S. is still recovering, with substantial support from the British. Boston reporter Carl Landry starts investigating the routine murder of a former military liaison, especially when his story is quashed by editorial censor. There is much political intrigue, especially about what led to the murder, but also about underground patriots rallying for freedom in the devastated war zones. While predictable in places, I especially liked the surprise at the end of the book.

[Dorian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recommend this to anyone who likes alternate history and/or political thrillers. I'm particularly impressed because it's a lot better written than many of the thrillers I've read (which admittedly, is not a large sample, but does include such BNAs as Tom Clancy, Jack Higgins and Len Deighton).

It's an alternate-history thriller, in which the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated into World War III. The US has bombed the Soviet Union back to the Dark Ages. The US (where the action is set) is not as badly off as that, but ten years on (1972) it's still under martial law, everything is rationed, the UK is sending aid, and generally the country is in a situation not dissimilar to that of Germany in the late 1940s. Our Hero is a journalist who reports on a random murder, only to find that the military censor attached to his paper has pulled the story. Why? He starts investigating.

The characters are well-drawn, believable from Our Hero down to the random soldier he chats with beside the Wire.

The pacing is subtle - I was more than a third of the way into the book when I realised "we're not in set-up any more - we haven't been in set-up for quite some time!" Events build quietly upon events until suddenly we're in the thick of things and belatedly realising "yes, all of this was coming, but we didn't notice any more than Our Hero did".

Settings, from grim post-war Boston to Manhattan to the General's office, are well-drawn without too much verbiage. (Brendan Dubois is one thriller writer who has failed to fall into the trap of "I've suffered for my art and now you will too".)

I feel like some of the political background went over my head, because I'm not American and know little about JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis, but that didn't impair my enjoyment of the book.

Lots of "who is working for who" and "who can I trust" angst.

I didn't really think the sections involving the British army in Canada were particularly necessary to the story, but they're short so can be happily ignored.

Overall, a very entertaining read.

(And really, how can you not be drawn to a book whose tag-line is "Everybody remembers where they were the day President Kennedy tried to kill them"?)

[Edmond Barrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superior Alt-History

I found this book on the bargain table of a small shop in the middle nowhere and proved a bargain in every sense.

The story is set ten years after Cuban Missile Crisis became the trigger for World War Three. The USSR is now little more than a Nuclear wasteland, America a bankrupt and borderline military dictatorship with craters where its capital and several other major cities used to be. The story has two threads, the primary follows reporter Carl Landry and his attempts to uncover the truth behind the last war, while the second follows what may the start of the next.

Where this book is hugely strong is in the world around characters. The author really does seem to have thought about how both America, Americans and the world beyond would be affected by the events of a decade earlier. America is now a land of shortages in basic commodities and services, in scene there is a real sense of hardship, with everything becoming more worn and raged because the resources to replace or repair just aren't there. Best of all the author gets across the slight sense of bewilderment of how this could have happened to what was once a land of plenty.

The primary character, Carl Landry another strong aspect. DuBois has given him a history that allows him to be capable without turning him into a superman. The female lead is a bit of a damsel in distress at times that's at most only a minor flaw.

So overall this is a very powerful piece. Real thought has been given as to the consequences of events and the result is a book that is a must real for Alt-history fans.

[Chip · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unexpectedly excellent random find. (Don’t even recall where or when I picked this up … maybe at a library sale/give away?) And yet … one of the better historical fiction / thrillers / alternative history novels I’ve read - up there with Phillip Kerr’s Berlin Noir Bernie Gunter books and Ben Winter’s The Last Policeman trilogy. The author is clearly an intelligent lover (or at least admirer) of history … wasn’t shocked to learn he’s been a Jeopardy contestant. Looks like the edition I read was self-published … if his other books are on par with this one shocking to me he doesn’t have a publishing contract. One negative note: there were a few light touches of sexism in the protagonist’s speech and behavior - but maybe that’s intentional per the very early ‘70’s setting?

[Mauricio Bussab · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise is interesting, the construction of the alternate present is well done and well researched. The prose is awful. The characters are reused cliches from noir novels and bad 70s cop shows. The dialogue is painful. The romantic scenes looks like homework he was forced to write. I read about two thirds of this then I remembered that life is too short.

[Mark Gannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone knows where they were the day Kennedy tried to kill them.

With a tag line like that, you know you are in for an interesting read. A look at a world where the Cuban Missile Crises escalated to full scale nuclear war. The tempo never lets up. Five stars.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ooooh, I did not like this book. The setting is interesting - it's the 1970s, and America is still reeling after a nuclear exchange during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In this world, the US got hit by enough nukes to destroy Washington DC, NYC, Florida, and, um, Omaha, Nebraska, losing 10 -12 million people, while the USSR was completely destroyed in return.

The problem is the execution. There's a passage I just couldn't get past where our hero is explaining to a Brit that America feels guilty, comparing the nuclear exchange to when a neighborhood bully throws trash into your yard and in return you shoot him, murder his family and burn his house down. My problem here is that the person saying this had his entire family killed in the incident he describes as "throwing trash in your yard". On top of that, a big part of his character is that he was in the Army doing radiation cleanup and saw horrible things that haunt him to this day. So would he be comparing all of his family dying and the haunting, terrible aftermath that makes up his largest character trait as throwing trash in someone's yard? What?

One more complaint and I'm done. The author hints that England is getting ready to invade the US, taking advantage of the US' weakness even 10 years on after the bombs and missles fell. However, the author also states that the US is now the only nuclear power left in the world, with all the other countries having voluntarily given up their nukes. I couldn't get past this either: England is going to militarily challenge and attempt to invade the world's only nuclear power? What?

(To be fair, maybe the Brits have some counter measure, like they secretly have their own nukes - but the author attempts to build tension by hinting at this invasion, and since he does not address the nuke issue, this comes off as a damp squib and frankly a waste of pages.)

Take a pass on this one.

[Mieczyslaw Kasprzyk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book - it was the first DuBois book I read. The story of a post-Cuba Crisis America where everything went wrong is gripping from start to finish.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's is a great yarn! The premise is still something I find shocking. Try to imagine the US as a third world country. I really like it, and still find it a little haunting. Worth a look!!

[Vicky Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up in a charity shop having read ‘Six Days’ by the same author. Rarely have I read books where history has been rewritten and an alternate world is in play. I will definitely be on the look out for more! Filled with twists and doomsday possibilities against a back drop of America as a third world country, it kept me captivated and stretched my imagination without dipping into fantasy literature. What if Kennedy hadn’t died....?

[Elliott · Rating 1 out of 5]

Updated 8/5/24….

You ruined it you bastard, you fucking bastard…
USA Today reports 7/12/24: “Author Brendan DuBois charged with 6 counts of child sex pornography.”



I recently reread this book-which had at one point in time been my favorite book-and I was disappointed. This is hardly a unique occurrence, plenty have reread their favorite books and been left wondering if the book changed or did I?
That's a potentially depressing bit of philosophizing, but I'd rather enjoy the view that I have read more, and that the gem that it had been to my 15 year old self still remains-just that I am older now. There are sparkling bits of brilliance that I remember then, that I continue to respect-details about the Cuban War of the novel, specifically the atomic bombing of New York and brief memories of characters still have a cinematic potency that drags me by the scruff and tosses me into a world split by the power of the atom. But it also lags in many portions-the epilogue felt like a cop-out to be sure, the British were addicted to Empire, and felt like all the stereotypes of Revolutionary era propaganda gone mad-hardly real, and a bit cringe worthy at times. The image of a bombed out New York is much the same-while details of the bombing, and the image of the city being a dead zone are excellent portraits equal parts chilling and fascinating-the communities of refugees that still live there are not. These amount to a fake sort of charm, an impossibly sweet moment in an otherwise dreary setting. They detract more than add to the atmosphere, which is largely the problem of the novel. Brendan DuBois has created a very real, very excellent portrait but seemingly doesn't know who to populate it with, or how to populate it.

[Jon Spoelstra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorites. It's now 1972. Washington, D.C. is a radioactive crater after a Cuban Missile crisis fiasco. DuBois creates a sobering and imaginatively detailed vision of an America that has been crippled by tragedy. One of DuBois's many brilliant touches is an underground of diehard Kennedy supporters who scrawl the graffiti "He Lives" on every available surface, because they believe that JFK was not only innocent, but is still alive and broadcasting from a pirate radio station. Cohesively plotted and smoothly written, steadily exciting and rife with clever conceits, this is what-if thriller fiction at its finest.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Cuban Missile Crisis went hot in 62. In 72 America, damaged, remains a closed-up society run as a puppet to the military. Only a plucky journo can reinvigorate a freedom-loving and positive culture, but he has to tend with the fascist bullys and the British, who have plans to recreate the Empire. Started out pretty strong, but got a tad silly and formulaic towards the end. In the last 100 pages you can see the Stars and Stripes fluttering over every page. Rated M for some violence and coarse language. 3/5

[Tom Lynch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Firstly, I found the scenario of this alternate outcome of the Cuban Missile crisis to be original. Most alternate scenarios tend to assume that global destruction would have taken place, so to have a situation where the USSR has been annihilated, the USA severely damaged but Europe unscathed and prosperous is interesting, and yet the way the events are told, entirely plausible. The story has feel of Fatherland. It twists and turns, the characters and settings are believable. It makes for a great read. I've read the book several times and have found it enjoyable on each occasion.

[Elaine and Tess the Springer. I won’t be on GR for a bit. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding read.

It's been 20 years since I read my first Brendan DuBois and I loved his style then and I love it now. His books are so near the knuckle and that's why they are so good to read it's also why they are very scary as well. I definitely recommend reading Resurrection Day and also his other books.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A CLEVER ALTERNATE HISTORY OF THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

Ten years ago millions of Americans and Soviet citizens had died in a nuclear war. Washington DC, Miami, San Diego, and several other cities lie in rubble. The United States is now a second-rate power, dependent on aid from Great Britain. Chafing under martial law, the survivors struggle to feed and clothe themselves. The aftermath of nuclear war is ugly in every way. Complainers end up in “decon camps” reminiscent of World War II. Now, in 1972, elections have resumed, and George McGovern will soon face off against Nelson Rockefeller for the presidency. Meanwhile, an enterprising Boston Globe reporter, Carl Landry, struggles to investigate the murder of an old man against the express orders of his editor. Thus begins Brendan DuBois’s skillful alternate history of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Resurrection Day.

THE CENTRAL CHARACTERS

Carl Landry is a combat veteran granted a job as a general assignment reporter at the Boston Globe. He’s the protagonist of this tale. But seven others play pivotal roles in DuBois’s devilishly clever story.

THE AMERICANS

** Merl Sawson, an old man in tattered clothes whose death launches Carl’s investigation. He’s suspicious because the man had promised to deliver evidence of a big scandal before he was murdered.
General Ramsay (“The Rammer”) Curtis of the US Air Force, now retired, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Commander of the Strategic Air Command. He’s credited with having stopped the nuclear war between the USA and the Soviet Union and has become the virtual dictator of the United States.

** George Dooley, the Globe‘s Metro Editor and Carl’s boss.

** Major Cullen Devane, an army officer assigned as “Oversight Editor” at the Globe, who acts as a censor under the prevailing martial law regime.

THE BRITISH

** Sandra (Sandy) Price, an enterprising reporter for The Times of London. She teams up with Carl for a long stretch of his investigation into Merl Sawson’s murder.

** General Sir John Sheffield, OBE, CR, retired from the British Army, who visits Boston on a mysterious errand, only to meet his death there.

** Major Kenneth Hunt, a British paratroop commander assigned to an air base across the border in Canada.

MYSTERY PILES ON MYSTERY

Carl Landry’s investigation will lead him far from the cut-and-dried question of an old man’s murder into the thicket of politics at the highest level. At the outset, he seeks only to learn who killed Merl Sawson, and why. But the case will soon point to other troubling questions. What really happened in October 1962, when the US invasion of Cuba triggered a nuclear attack by the USSR? Did JFK really die, as all the evidence suggests, or did he survive, as the cultists believe? What’s going on in New York City, where troops patrol the streets against some unstated threat even after the city has been evacuated? Why are the British sending over food and medicine? What’s in it for them? And will Nelson Rockefeller, who is allied with General Curtis, defeat George McGovern, who advocates for change? Everyone expects that to happen, but could things change?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brendan DuBois is the author of twenty-nine novels of suspense, several of them coauthored with the wildly prolific James Patterson. Many of his books have featured on the New York Times Bestseller Lists. Most of his books are straightforward mystery novels. But he is best known for Resurrection Day, which won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. DuBois was born in New Hampshire in 1959. He lives in the state with his wife.

[Nik Morton · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ‘what if?’ scenario is tantalising indeed: What if the Cuban Missile Crisis had become a full-blown war?

It’s 1972, ten years after the nuclear bombs were dropped. Russia was crushed: ‘... no more large cities, no more government. Just tribes of people, trying to survive in muddy villages that could have existed in the Middle Ages, a decade after an entity called SAC had obliterated their nation from the earth’ (p65). California is virtually destroyed, New York has been depopulated, Washington DC lies beneath a giant crater lake. Europe is unscathed – Nato collapsed. Presidential elections are due at the end of the year. What was left of the United States relied on aid from Great Britain; the USA was shamed and ostracised by the international community because it let the nuclear genie out of the bottle.

Carl Landry, ex-US Army, is now a civilian, a journalist on the Boston Globe newspaper. The paper is heavily edited by an army Captain in accordance with the Martial Law Declaration of 1962 and the National Emergency Declaration of 1963. The Land of the Free no longer has free speech. ‘Why torture yourself, remembering full supermarket shelves, clean clothes, steady power, and a government that didn’t hunt down draft dodgers and didn’t censor the news and didn’t run labour camps for the dissidents, the protesters, the ones that didn’t belong. That time was gone, was never coming back, not ever’ (p99).

Landry is approached by an aging veteran who has some important papers; they arrange to meet next day, but the vet is murdered, his apartment trashed.

Making enquiries, Landry learns of the deaths of the vet’s neighbours and friends. ‘... when the current national death rates and the results of the 1970 census were both kept secret because of national security, well, if life wasn’t cheap, it certainly wasn’t worth much’ (p51).

He begins to dig – and is warned off more than once: ‘Carl knew he had entered the murky land of late-night arrests, ‘disappearances’, and closed-door trials’ (p162). He was also attacked by an orfie gang – comprising feral orphans of the war.

He befriends Sandy Price, a journalist for the Times of London. She’s beautiful and clever. When they are both co-opted on a fact-finding mission to New York for their papers, they jump at the chance. And then things get weird and hairy, not least because there’s a faction that believes President Kennedy didn’t die in Washington, but still lives; his resurrection could screw the forthcoming elections, indeed.

DuBois has managed to create believable and often sympathetic characters, as well as a post-war situation that seems credible. It was an immersive experience. I zipped through the 580 pages in no time.

An impressive addition to the vast library of ‘what if?’ novels.

[skip thurnauer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have enjoyed reading other books or watching films that ask the question, “What if the other side won?” Resurrection Day is that sort of novel. What would America and the world be like if the U.S. and Russia, President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev, hadn’t walked away from a violent confrontation during the Cuban missile crisis. I was a junior high school student when Russia moved missiles to Cuba and the U.S. military prepared for war. A scary time. Fortunately a diplomatic settlement ended the conflict. In Resurrection Day, the conflict was not resolved diplomatically and the Russians bombed several U..S. cities including the capital and New York. President Kennedy and most of America’s leaders are killed. The Americans virtually destroy Russia. This story takes place 10 years later and America is a much different country, economically dependent on goodwill from Britain and others, subject to harsh censorship, and under strong authoritarian leadership. Carl Landry is a veteran and reporter for the Boston Globe. He is assigned to report on the murder of an elderly man, Merl Swanson, like Carl also a veteran. The police are quick to write the murder off as a robbery gone wrong, but Carl doesn’t buy that. He writes a story for the Globe that is curiously pulled before the newspaper is printed. Carl becomes persistent in seeking out the truth, even though his editor and the newspaper’s government censor yank him off the story. The newspaperman uncovers additional murders and suspicious deaths linked to Swanson. This leads him on a dangerous search for the truth. Along the way he partners with an attractive British reporter for the London Times. The presence of British special ops troops on American soil makes Carl wonder whether the Brits are here to help us or pull us back into their orbit of influence as the junior partner in the relationship. On a special press tour of bombed out New York, Carl encounters an underground band of Americans determined to preserve America and democracy. As the election between Republican Nelson Rockefeller and Democrat George McGovern approaches, tensions rise as the fate of the country seems to hang in the balance. Resurrection Day is a little contrived at times, but is an intense thriller based on a clever premise about an alternate America.

[Dave Morton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book at a charity stall. I had never heard of its author, but it is proving surprisingly good and well written. I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, when we all thought we were doomed, and DuBois brings back the memories of those days.

In his alternate world, the Crisis turned into War, a devastating conflict that destroyed Russia utterly, and ruined America economically. Implausibly, Britain and the European democracies seem to have come through unscathed, having failed to support Kennedy.

Resurrection Day is set ten years after the Cuban War, with USA now an unpleasant dictatorship, receiving aid from a Britain happy to repay the strings-attached aid it received in WW2, and gleefully making the Americans grovel and squirm. It is not a happy relationship, with Brits and Canadians ostentatiously sporting their wealth in front of the US survivors.

Payback time!

The winners are the people of Vietnam and Cambodia, who are spared the atrocities meted out by Kennedy and his successors.

The central character is a former soldier, who was actually serving in Vietnam, but recalled home as the crisis developed. Ex-military are suspiciously regarded as war criminals. He is working as a reporter in Boston and investigating murders which may be related to the above historical events.

I am about a third of the way through the novel, and there are hints of an unpleasant (British?) conspiracy to come. No 'spoiler' because I don't yet know what it is. There are also rumours that Kennedy may have survived the bomb that destroyed Washington, a nice parallel with the Hitler-lives myth. War criminal, or hero? In this world, as in ours, for different reasons.

A thoroughly enjoyable read so far. I hope the author has managed to pull it off and to finish the job as well as he started it.

[Gin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great pacing, interesting premise, though the ending, utterly implausible in the context of reading it today. That men in the media will act with the integrity that we have seen in the book. Censorship was considered intolerable in the setting of the world. Today? It’s embraced. If only this book version of the US actually existed.

I thought that the book was really a product of its time, the late 1990s where there was a level of optimism in the air of the future, where the US was still seen as a “beacon of liberty” (if one forgets the crimes of the US in 1970s and 80s in Central and South America). The belief of the author that the US for all its faults was seen as a beacon for liberal democracy (though many of us in the Global South will beg to differ). The writing reflects the inherent idea that the US is one founded on freedom, reflected in the Constitution.

One thing that I thought the author got right though was on the nature of how rights are slowly eroded. It’s not the kind of sudden change that many other writers write about - one day there is freedom and the next day none. History has shown otherwise - Weimar Germany in the 1930s and the US today, with the current administration. In the book, what started out as emergency powers clamping down on rights slowly became normalised. People gave their their rights because of how horrific the aftermath of the nuclear war is - what mattered was survival. But slowly, what they gave up continued to be so, as the newly promulgated laws after the war persisted; people would not give up the awesome level of powers that they have unless forced to. That to me was probably the most realistic part of the book, and a sad reflection of our time and perhaps species.

[Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

An alternate history nuclear war thriller in which the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated into a shooting war, the Soviet Union was obliterated and many American cities were devastated, leaving the country a shadow of its former self, Resurrection Day takes place 10 years later, following a plucky Boston Globe journalist investigating the murder of someone with mysterious links to that fateful week in the White House in the October of '63.

It's fine, for the most part, but is way too bloated for the story it's trying to tell, and easily could have been whittled down by several hundred pages. The post-bomb world also falls apart if you start picking at it; too much of it hinges on a nefarious plan by the British to further neuter the United States and reclaim their place in the world, hampered by British SAS troops who... feel bad about that for some reason? As with Whitley Streiber and his novel "Warday," Brendan DuBois seems to have a rather skewed view of how gushingly grateful the average Briton is about America's participation in World War II. And also, for that matter, of how the average Briton talks. The first chapter follows an English colonel and contains "chaps," "bloody," "bollocks up" (???), "loo," "Queen and country" and - this cracked me up - a character whose hand is shaking so badly she "had to put down her teacup." Cloistered Americans with a dim understanding of other countries are not the best people to be speculating on the geopolitics of a post-nuclear-war world, especially when it's an integral part of the plot. Anyway, it's fine, but unless you have a particular interest in nuclear war fiction I wouldn't seek it out.

[Robert W. Blue, Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Resurrection Day" falls under the category of science fiction and fantasy knows as alternate history. "Resurrection Day" is set in the aftermath of a war resulting from the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, something I lived through. We actually practiced duck and cover drills at my elementary school. In this alternate history, an Air Force General disobeys President Kennedy's orders to not retaliate after our U-2 spy plane was shot down over Cuba. An attack is launched on the missile site, Soviet and Cuban forces retaliate, and the conflict goes nuclear. Some U.S. cities are destroyed in what becomes known as "The Cuban War," including Washington, D.C., New York City, San Diego, and the Strategic Air Command in Nebraska. However, the Soviet Union, having fewer missiles (as we learned was the truth, revealed after the fall of the Soviet Union) is devastated to the point it never really recovers. The USA ends up as a country with many problems and also is under a semi-military dictatorship. Civilian Presidents are still elected, but the real power lies with the military . Ten years after the war, a reporter from The Boston Globe uncovers the story of the century. I will not ruin the story for you because it is a page turner.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like others, I was attracted by the tagline: "Everyone knows where they were the day Kennedy tried to kill them." What if the Cuban Missile Crisis had become the Cuban War? The book's strengths are the crisp, brisk writing, the rapid plot, and the historical accuracy: the US did have the upper hand in 1962 and in a real atomic shootout, the US would have been devastated but the USSR would have been annihilated. Also, the author mostly restrains the almost-automatic reflex of alternative history writers to name-drop famous people from our timeline into the alternate timeline. What i found less than satisfying was the explanation of the motivations of the various shadowy forces involved: even at the end of the novel, I couldn't really understand if the British government was a friend, foe, or both, of the protagonist, and I couldn't understand how certain characters could simultaneously be proud isolationists and willing dupes of foreign powers. I think it could have been a simpler plot with fewer villains. Still, I enjoyed it and kept turning pages until the end.

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been a fan of alternate history books for years, but a common theme with a lot of them is that one of the main characters is the world/scenario itself. While this isn't always the worst thing in the world, is does sometimes make the characters we follow feel a little uninteresting. That is not a problem with this book. The scenario of the Cuban Missile Crisis leading to World War 3 truly is just the setting of this tale, with the forefront being the mystery that our main character, newspaper man and veteran Carl Landry, is trying to uncover. Along the way we meet a cast of characters and visit locations that help us see how this alternate world functions and has progressed since the alternate events, but it feels more natural than other alt history authors do it.

This book by Brendan DuBois felt like a true thriller novel, that just so happened to be set in an alt history setting. I enjoyed it much more than I ever expected, and I wouldn't be surprised if its a book I come back to every few years.

[Ian Hunter · Rating 4 out of 5]

An alternative history with a newspaper reporter dragged into the murky world of international politics and state secrets, in a United States drastically altered by the obliteration of Washington DC, San Diego, Omaha and partially NYC, by Soviet nuclear strikes. The rest of the world is also much changed; the Soviets are gone, wiped off the map by US nuclear weapons, France and Germany are going to the moon and the British are re-establishing their former Empire. The writer describes an alternative world which could well have happened if the Cuban missile crisis had played out in another way. But no-one knows exactly what happened, they only have the word of the US Military to go on, and they are now running the country. The plot unfolds at a nice pace, with well painted characters, and some interesting and thought provoking ideas. It occurred to me half way through that I had read the book previously, but enjoyed it enough to arrive at the end for a second time.

[Joe Stamber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good alternate history novel speculating on what might have happened had the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 not been resolved peacefully. The tale is told by Carl Landry, a reporter with the Boston Globe, who opens a can of worms when he attends a murder scene in search of a story. It turns out that Carl had seen the dead man before, and he had promised Carl a story. What that story was and why it is such a big deal unfolds over the rest of the book. DuBois does some imaginative and fascinating world building, and populates it with some interesting characters, many of whom are trying to bend things to their own agenda, frustrating Carl's efforts to get to the bottom of things. The writing style is quite straightforward, almost old-fashioned, but suits the purpose. It's quite a long book, but I was never bored, and enjoyed it from beginning to end.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of my favourite books when I was younger and decided to reread it this year.
This book is an alt-history novel, and the book that got me into the genre. Reading it again reminded me how good a book it is.
The book is set in America, one where the Cuban Missile crisis went hot and caused a nuclear exchange between the US and USSR, the US is a shell of it's former self and is under control of a toltaleterian government. We follow Carl, an ex soldier who is now a reporter for the Boston Globe. He becomes embroiled in a conpsiracy that threatens the whole narrative around what happened that fateful day the world changed, and may cause shockwaves that could topple a whole government.
This book I reccomend to anyone who loves political thrillers and/or alt-history books, a total page turner I couldn't put down.

[Les · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Original Thoughts (1999):

Excellent thriller! I was immediately caught up in the story and didn't want to put it down. Love the references to true history. Would love to see this adapted for the big screen. The special affects would be great. Somewhat anticlimactic ending, but I'm not sure how it could have been improved.

My Current Thoughts:

I have no recollection of this book, but it sounds like it might be worth rereading.

[Bradley Gerber · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like alternate history books and this one is fine. Actually it’s better than some relatively highly regarded ones.

The core idea is good. I think a better editor could have helped bring down the repetition a little, made a couple ancillary characters less one dimensional, and perhaps removed 2-3 of the “or maybe the McGuffin papers are THIS!!!!” misdirects.

But it’s an easy enough read and has a little fun as a what-if.

[Emanuele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written alternative history novel, the background and world building are populated organically over the book without excessive exposition

Characters are decent, if slightly stereotypical and the prose flows quite well, better than most. The final reveal was fairly obvious, but it still gave us a satisfactory ending