The Diplomatic Coup: A thriller

by Alan Elsner

Delphine Roget, a young French journalist, gets the chance of a lifetime to travel with Secretary of State Julia Dayton who is seen as a leading contender for President of the United States. Though some of her male colleagues seem hostile, Delphine is a smart reporter and catches the eye of the Secretary who begins feeding her information. As they travel from capital to capital, Dayton promotes a Middle East peace initiative that could be a springboard for her presidential bid. And Delphine begins to fall in love with Jason, the head of the Secretary's security detail. Written by a former State Department correspondent, this book is full of authentic detail. What's it like to travel on the plane of the Secretary of State, to file stories under pressure, to attend press conferences with heads of state? Only someone who has really been there can answer these questions. As reporters and officials seen as hostile the Secretary begin to show up dead, Delphine realizes that her very life is at stake. If she allows Dayton to carry on unchecked, the United States could be ruled by a megalomaniac who will stop at nothing. But if she takes a stand, her own future could be snuffed out by a ruthless adversary.

Kindle Edition

Published August 19, 2021

About the author

Alan Elsner has 30 years' experience in journalism, covering stories ranging from the September 11, 2001 attacks on America and the crisis in the Middle East to the 2000 Presidential election and the end of the Cold War. Elsners career has been marked by a passion for justice and truth, unquestioned integrity, and a willingness to confront the powerful, the complacent and the evasive.

In The Nazi Hunter he turns that formidable knowledge and expertise towards a gripping thriller weaving together fierce partisan politics, the search for ex-Nazi war criminals, romance, music and a crazed far-right militia intent on bringing down the government.

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Reviews

[Don Nordberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m looking for a novel to read and I remember that I had bought one three or four years ago but not opened it. It was written by a former colleague, a journalist whose newswriting and analyses I have long respected, especially about the Middle East.
Alan Elsner had been a correspondent for Reuters for a long time, among his various roles were leading the bureau in Israel and being the main correspondent covering the State Department in Washington. His latest venture into fiction is The Diplomatic Coup, published in 2021, a story of intrigue and murder as the US Secretary of State tries to organize a peace conference between the Palestinians and Israelis and involving other Arab states.
The protagonist is a French wire service journalist, a young woman brand new to the State Department beat, who is drawn into the intrigue by barely credible events. Barely credible, that is, unless we know the writer is someone who has flown around the world on planes taking Secretaries of State on their trips to foreign capitals, attended the press conferences and experienced the downtime and hours of finger-twiddling. With those scraps of information, which readers will surmise from the blurb, the first steps toward credibility emerge. Even if, unlike me, you don’t know the writer personally and respect his work, you might want to give it a spin. Read the rest of the review at https://open.substack.com/pub/donnord...

[Daniel Hennessey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Amateurish

Ridiculous contrived ending with more holes than a strainer. Did Dayton think that Jason was also going to disappear, come on? Mitch wouldn’t move , get rid of the body. The FBI is moments away, Dayton thinks she magically gets away? Ugh, what a waste of time

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise was pretty unbelievable--an American Secretary of State taking a French journalist into her confidence to write her biography, Then when a number of people around the secretary start to die, no one seems suspicious. And the ending just didn't seem to fit.