Eighties spy thriller with a premise that eerily mirrors the rise of Donald Trump to the presidency. It's about two spies, one British and one American, investigating whether the president-elect is a Russian agent. The president-elect is a vain and superficial businessman named Logan Powell. Like Donald Trump, he has very little interest in government policy, and his wife refuses to move to Washington. The two spies race to unmask Powell before Inauguration Day, January 20.
It's a short, fast-paced book, one you can finish in a single evening. Allbeury, a former spy, was adept at scenes involving spycraft, surveillance, and interrogation. There's just enough sex and violence to break things up. The plot is fairly straightforward, with very few twists and turns.
As for style, the book is dry and humorless. I would have preferred more satiric wit, perhaps due to my fondness for the works of Ross Thomas and Richard Condon. Although Allbeury was a popular spy novelist, he was a workmanlike, deadpan writer.
The story spans 54 days, starting on November 1 and ending on December 24, 1980. Seems a bit rushed. In contrast, Donald Trump and his associates have been under federal investigation for almost a year, with no end in sight. It's the only thing that Allbeury got wrong. Everything else is uncannily prescient.
Russian diplomat Vitaly Churkin reportedly gave Donald Trump a copy of the book in 1986, and Trump later told people it was his favorite spy novel. If that's true, Trump couldn't have read the ending.