State of Terror

 I belong to a book club, “ Argonauta,” named after the first book the club read, Gift from the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindberg.  Argonata is a chapter in Lindberg’s book.  Argonautas are female seashells, really delicate egg casings that drift here and there, living an adventure, for whom knows where the sea may take them.

Such is this book; I want to tell you about.  It is State of Terror by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny.  I put off reading it until the last days before Argonauta met.  I had mistakenly thought it was nonfiction.  I pictured a boring explanation of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's performance, a defense of what she had done, or a commendation on her successes.

Not so.

The book, State of Terror, is an argonauta sea shell that will take you on an adventure in a sea of political gales.  Dramamine won’t help.  You can’t get off the story.  You are reading a whirlwind of intrigue, word play, politics, and John Donne (the poet).  (There are a lot of figures of speech employed, {which I enjoyed very much,} because one of the major characters was a former high school English teacher.)  The English teacher, Betsy, and the main protagonist, Ellen Adams, the Secretary of State, use a personal secret code that only they understand, using figures of speech, for example:

An oxymoron walked into a bar…and the silence was deafening.

An argonauta was tossed from a wave into a bar and found herself in a State of Terror.

Thus the reader finds herself flying home in Air Force 3 from the Secretary of State’s first foray into diplomacy.  It was a disaster.  As the president, Doug Williams had known it would be.  Ellen the Secretary of State was set up, by the president.  They do not like each other and it was a surprise that the president even picked Ellen to be the Secretary of State. She and we readers can see that her role is going to be the scapegoat.

Then attention from Ellen’s debacle is drawn to a series of bombings throughout Europe. Chaos ensues trying to figure out what was going on.  Who, why, and who’s next are questions that make everyone frantic. Eventually, we find out that Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, and Iran are involved.  We think they’re involved in a race to develop nuclear weapons.  Actually, they are being manipulated by a vile Islam extreme terrorist, Bashir Shah.

I’m not giving any spoilers, so I won’t give a plot summary.  I will tell you that one of the delights of the novel, is that the characters are thinly disguised real people, currently, well-known people:

President Doug Williams is our President Biden.
Former President Eric Dunn is Former President Donald Trump.
British Premier Bellington is Boris Johnson
Osama Bin Laden is Bashir Shah

The private thoughts of the Secretary of State will make you wonder how real they are, or were.  The book is a political thriller.  The wordplay is clever and you may laugh out loud at the comebacks and witty banter employed by the cautious political enemies.  You will also cry, yes, sob.  The violence and loss of the characters you will have grown to love will make you weep.

State of Terror by Hillary Rodman Clinton and Louise Penny have a sensational bestseller.  I stayed up late reading this 500-page turner.  If you are human, you will probably lose some sleep, too.

So!  A hyperbole walked into a bar…and said this book is the best book I’ve ever read!