The Washington Decree

June 1, 2018
The creator of Denmark's Department Q, that unforgettable squad of misfit detectives (The Scarred Woman, 2017, etc.), jumps the pond in this ambitious, paranoid fantasy of how quickly things can go wrong in the hands of an American president who's determined to take a strong stand against threats of violence.Sixteen years after Virginia governor Bruce Jansen's first wife, Caroll, was stabbed to death during a very public moment on a visit to China, his successful run for the presidency comes to the worst possible climax when his second wife, Mimi Todd Jansen, is gunned down, perhaps in his stead, on election night. Deeply shaken by the first death, Jansen is so traumatized by the second that observers wonder whether he'll take the oath of office or resign in favor of Vice President-elect Michael K. Lerner. As it turns out, Jansen not only assumes, but transforms the office, using agencies and executive orders already in place to step up surveillance on his fellow citizens, unplug the internet, defang or shutter critical journalistic outlets, and ban first ammunition, then guns from private ownership. Members of paramilitary militias like Moonie Quale predictably go ballistic, but members of Jansen's cabinet, many of them touched by personal violence against their loved ones, overwhelmingly support him. So far the scenario recalls that of It Can't Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis' classic 1935 novel of homegrown American fascism. Adler-Olsen's complication is his decision to focus not on a single American oppressed and powerfully radicalized by the new regime but by an oddly assorted group--journalist John Bugatti, presidential press secretary Wesley Barefoot, Sheriff T. Perkins, and staff attorney Dorothy "Doggie" Rogers, whose father is convicted of arranging Mimi Todd Jansen's murder--who were all present on that fateful day in Beijing.Despite a disturbing and all-too-plausible concept duly supported by an appendix listing real-life executive orders ripe for tyrannical misuse, this nightmare gradually turns into a standard-issue lots-of-good-guys-versus-even-more-bad-guys scenario populated by characters you'll hardly miss when they're killed, as so many of them are.

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June 11, 2018
First published in Denmark in 2006, Adler-Olsen’s far-fetched political thriller plays out in a near-future Washington, D.C., where newly elected President Bruce Jansen tries to centralize power by suspending parts of the Constitution. Convinced the country is headed for ruin after his wife’s assassination, Jansen takes several measures to severely limit civil rights. Meanwhile, wealthy hotel magnate Bud Curtis, a political rival of the president, is arrested for the killing of Jansen’s wife. The arrest complicates the career of Curtis’s daughter, Doggie, who has worked for Jansen for many years. As her father’s execution date nears—the death penalty runs rampant in this milieu—Doggie abandons her White House job and sets out to prove her father’s innocence. The ponderous plot moves in ways that strain belief. Fans of the author’s long-running Department Q crime series (The Scarred Woman, etc.) won’t find much to like. Agent: Rudi Urban Rasmussen, Politiken Literary Agency (Denmark).

July 1, 2018
Six people?Dorothy Doggie Rogers, Wesley Barefoot, Rosalie Lee, Sheriff T. Perkins, journalist John Bugatti, and Virginia U.S. Senator Bruce Jansen?are bound forever when they witness the assassination of Jansen's wife during a goodwill trip to China. Fifteen years later, Doggie and Wesley are dedicated workers on Jansen's victorious presidential campaign. But, on election night, instead of cheering Jansen's acceptance speech, they witness the assassinations of his second wife and unborn child. Doggie's father, a vocal critic of Jansen, is arrested for masterminding the assassination. Now the president, Jansen responds with a law-and-order agenda: executive orders that declare a state of emergency, invoke FEMA's broad domestic powers, and rescind constitutional rights on everything from free speech to bearing arms. When America's militias turn against the government, Jansen finds justification to execute political opponents and wield autocratic control. Adler-Olsen weaves a thought-provoking dystopia through the experiences of Jansen's inner circle: Doggie and T. Perkins, risking death to implicate a powerful enemy in the assassination; Wesley, forced to remain Jansen's press secretary or face death; Bugatti, hunted while documenting the government's abuses; and, Rosalie, who clings to the hope that Jansen's measures will save her sons from a life of crime. A hauntingly timely political thriller, flawed only in that its conclusion shifts despotic chaos into an idealized democratic rebirth too neatly.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

Starred review from June 15, 2018

Written in 2006, Adler-Olsen's ("Department of Q" series) prescient stand-alone thriller depicts the fall of democracy when the U.S. government is dominated by personal agendas and abuse of power. A public relations stunt for Democratic senator Bruce Jansen brings an unlikely group together; 16 years later, after Jansen is elected president, they reconnect to protect America from dictatorship. In the wake of his pregnant wife's assassination on election night, Jansen is determined to end gun violence. Using presidential executive orders and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's authority, Jansen and his loyal cabinet create a police state in which the Constitution is suspended and the Bill of Rights is invalidated. Congress is shut down. Undocumented immigrants are deported, borders are closed, and the press is censored. Opponents disappear. White House employee Dorothy "Doggie" Rogers and press secretary Wesley Barefoot must work with their old friends from the PR campaign--Sheriff T. Perkins, charismatic Rosalie Lee, and NBC journalist John Bugatti--to convince Americans that the new order is the product of a treacherous coup. VERDICT As with Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here, this nightmarish portrait reveals how easily democracy can slide into autocracy, scaring the apathy out of readers. [See Prepub Alert, 2/11/18.]--K.L. Romo, Duncanville, TX

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June 15, 2018

Top-of-the-heap Danish writer Adler-Olsen set this book in America, where 14-year-old Dorothy "Doggie" Rogers is among a group of dedicated campaign works who helped elect Democratic senator Bruce Jansen president. When Jansen's pregnant wife is assassinated--by Doggie's rabid Republican father, no less--Jansen cracks down hard. Written a decade ago and still relevant.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.