The following review was contributed by: John Walsh: CLICK TO VIEW John Walsh's Reviews

There will probably always be a market for fast-moving political thrillers with shady organisations conspiring against each other and using violence and technology to achieve their unexpected goals. To that extent, Politics and Patriotism: The Fisk Conspiracy has the makings of a good book. Set in Washington a few years in the future, the author combines a number of common elements that are familiar for this sort of book: secret networks of the privileged elite, the use of black helicopters, good people forced to do bad things for the right reasons, inability to be certain as to who the good guys are and who are the bad guys and so forth. Written in a series of short chapters, with multiple changes of perspective and rapid bursts of action, much of the book is entertaining and, if not exactly thrilling, then at least enjoyably tense – tense, that is, for people more familiar with television or film rather than reading. Most of the tropes are recognizable from dozens of films and television shows – shining bright lights that prevent recognition of the faces of interrogators, the exploding vehicles, the lengthy unspoken exchanges between the major players and the sneaking into the secret computer room are all immediately remembered from a dozen X-Files or similar productions. That in itself is not wholly a bad thing, of course.

However, this book has the major problem that the level of political analysis is both silly and hopelessly provincial. Full of unexamined assumptions that do not bear even a moment’s evaluation, the heart of the book and the plot drivers have an irredeemable lack of credibility. The backgrounds of the plot and characters are really not worth describing. This is a pity as it seems the author is capable of writing in the future a book of some interest. Writers should be readers, too.