J
JAMESBJOHNSON
Guest
LINE OF SUCCESSION by Brian Garfield.
Terrorists blow up the US Capitol building on the first day of a new Congress and new administration. One hundred and 43 people die, including several in the immediate line of succession...vice president-elect, speaker of the house, the departing vice president. The president-elect is kidnapped and murdered.
The book is forty years old and the terrorists are who you'd expect from 1972: Militant blacks, Cuban commies, naïve young rich Jewish kids, and a few soldiers of fortune who know how to make bombs and slaughter people. They capture a secret service agent, pull her tongue out with pliers and remove her heart with hammer and chisel.
The central issue is: Does the nation now arrest and persecute all its leftist anarchists, or does it exercise patience and restraint and suffer more harm.
Garfield includes all the essential parts. Half of the writing is excellent, and half is so dull and tedious you wanna throw the book away. That is, the action is good, and the constitutional/legal debates are boring as hell. The terrorists quarrel over haircuts and baths and attire. The Jewish kids hate their wealthy parents. The blacks think they can walk inside a Wall Street bank, in army field jackets, afros, and sneakers to get a million dollars at the point of a gun. The mercenaries recruited the kids and blacks because theyre naïve and stupid and expendable.
Its not really plausible tho it reminds me of the Patty Hearst/Sybianese Liberation Army debacle of 1973. This followed DEATH WISH but isn't as good as the books that came along 2-3 years later. Later books omitted the navel gazing.
3 stars.
Terrorists blow up the US Capitol building on the first day of a new Congress and new administration. One hundred and 43 people die, including several in the immediate line of succession...vice president-elect, speaker of the house, the departing vice president. The president-elect is kidnapped and murdered.
The book is forty years old and the terrorists are who you'd expect from 1972: Militant blacks, Cuban commies, naïve young rich Jewish kids, and a few soldiers of fortune who know how to make bombs and slaughter people. They capture a secret service agent, pull her tongue out with pliers and remove her heart with hammer and chisel.
The central issue is: Does the nation now arrest and persecute all its leftist anarchists, or does it exercise patience and restraint and suffer more harm.
Garfield includes all the essential parts. Half of the writing is excellent, and half is so dull and tedious you wanna throw the book away. That is, the action is good, and the constitutional/legal debates are boring as hell. The terrorists quarrel over haircuts and baths and attire. The Jewish kids hate their wealthy parents. The blacks think they can walk inside a Wall Street bank, in army field jackets, afros, and sneakers to get a million dollars at the point of a gun. The mercenaries recruited the kids and blacks because theyre naïve and stupid and expendable.
Its not really plausible tho it reminds me of the Patty Hearst/Sybianese Liberation Army debacle of 1973. This followed DEATH WISH but isn't as good as the books that came along 2-3 years later. Later books omitted the navel gazing.
3 stars.
