Review: The President Is Missing

The President Is Missing by Bill Clinton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

First, I respect both of the men who collaborated on this—one for his consistent ability to pen best sellers and the second for political reasons that transcend the scope of this novel. With that said, I soooo wanted to love this! In the end, however, it was just “eh”.

President Duncan, the sitting US president, is mourning the premature death of his wife, keeping quasi-tabs on his daughter and trying to save the United States from a promised terrorist attack that will send the country reeling into the “dark ages”. Whilst keeping all these balls in the air, he is also facing impeachment at the hands of both the ruthless Speaker of the House and the Vice President, who maintains aspirations of the Oval Office and harbors ill-will at having been pummeled during the primaries. When contacted by a terrorist claiming to have information that will help Duncan thwart the attack, the president goes off the grid to attempt to neutralize the threat.

Without providing spoilers, I will say that I enjoyed the plot turns that occurred seemingly out of nowhere and just when the reader believed the way was clear. It’s like going to a restaurant and discovering it’s just a front for a high stakes poker game in the back room. Beyond that, however, I found the presidential discourse from Duncan to border on rhetoric that made me wince in its banality. Additionally, I thought the book was slow and depended upon a “what if” instead of “it happened; now what” approach. The result was a meandering through some suspenseful situations that never really involved much beyond a lot of talking and never evolved beyond the conversation.

Overall, I enjoyed the writing, but I felt the plot needed some work to grab and maintain reader interest.

View all my reviews