Book #46: The First Lady

Another audiobook to tide me over until my next Aubrey & Maturin instalment becomes available, and another new author for me. I've heard a lot about James Patterson, he's apparently one of the biggest authors around, yet I haven't read any of his books. Likely because it's not been a genre I'd ever touched. But with what seemed like a huge amount of time between audiobooks, I decided to settle on this book.

So, The First Lady. It's actually written by two authors, I don't think I've ever read something that's been co-authored before. For me, a clash of styles could cause massive issues, but honestly I wouldn't have known any different. I may have to explore more collaborative efforts in the future.

The First Lady is a political thriller, centred around the US Government, and the president and his wife in particular. The President has done a Clinton, hand been caught having an affair, which very quickly goes public. The fallout is that the first lady disappears from the White House, and eventually manages to slip away from her protection detail. Cue a frenzied search by the Secret Service, and an attempt to use the situation to gather support to a disgraced president in the run up to the Presidential Election.

I loved the pace of the book, the chapters were short, and flowed nicely. Again, like with a couple of other books that I've read recently, it switches between viewpoints on a regular basis, and also from first to third person depending on the viewpoint. This meant that on occasion, I got confused with which character was the focus, however I don't think it disrupted the flow too much.

The characters were nicely written I think. The president, being the most powerful man in the world (allegedly) seemd to be quite a bumbling character, and not wholly in control. The Secret Service agents were competent, yet fairly useless at the same time, I mean, who lets their primary slip the net so easily!? However, I liked the lead agent, she seemed to have it together, despite having a tumultuous time in her own personal life.

There seemed to be a few glaring plotholes in the book, which weren't major, but did leave a lot of questions unanswered about the competency of the Secret Service and other characters. But hey, it's a work of fiction.

I did enjoy the book, not as much as I probably should have, but it's certainly given me a taste of James Patterson, and I feel like I'll be delving into his back catalogue... it may take me a lifetime to read the several million books he's published... he can't have written them all... surely?!

The First Lady: 2.5cm

Total Read so far: 46 books, 138cm

Total left to read: 55cm