The Innocent Have Nothing to Fear

July 25, 2016
In the days leading up to the 2020 Republican National Convention in New Orleans, J.D. Callahan, son of a famous Louisiana civil rights lawyer and himself a savvy political campaign manager, scrambles to lure the delegates needed to secure the party nomination for his boss, Vice President Hilda Smith. Her opponent for the nomination is Armstrong George, a Donald Trumpâesque extremist governor from Colorado looking to build a wall across the Mexican border and militarize the nation. While Callahan schemes for Smith, he finds himself also stuck dealing with his half-brothers: Paul, himself aiming to enter New Orleans politics, and Tyler, a skinhead manager of a local strip club. To make matters worse, someone is detonating small explosions around the city, frightening Smith's delegates and reinforcing George's scare tactic rhetoric. Stevens (The Last Season) offers some interesting insight into what goes into a political campaign, but his repetitive prose, narrative leaps in logic, and stereotypical characters fail to truly resonate. The real-life presidential race currently consuming the United States in 2016 makes this fictional excursion feel like a pale imitation.

You can almost feel the muggy Louisiana air while listening to narrator Dan John Miller's Southern accent. And the little chuckle he gives while delivering certain lines is exactly what you'd expect from a smarmy Southern politico. Anyone who has been to "the Big Easy" in the summer will be nodding along with the descriptions and enjoying the references to local landmarks. You may want to listen twice to catch every detail of this humorous political drama. Even though Miller's voicings of female characters could be better, his soft tone and high-pitched accent make it easy to picture the sweet Southern belles that these women try to appear to be. A.K. � AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine