Hillary

August 22, 2016
At the start of Edgar-finalist Buffa’s third thriller featuring Sen. Bobby Hart (after 2010’s The Grand Master), U.S. president Robert Constable dies in a Manhattan hotel in the company of a woman not his wife. Constable’s minders at the scene scramble to remove all evidence of the tryst. Though officials say Constable died of a heart attack (alone), his widow, Hillary, suspects her husband was murdered, possibly at the behest of a secretive French banking institution, the Four Sisters. When Bobby pays his respects to Hillary, she asks him to investigate a possible conspiracy. Bobby travels to France, where he meets the head of the Four Sisters, Jean de la Valette, who’s more philosopher than financier. Those who can verify the conspiracy are discredited and killed, and Bobby finds himself framed for their deaths. Occasionally, the book threatens to veer into Dan Brown territory; the final revelations feel rushed and unearned, and Hillary isn’t much of a presence.

Buffa aims for a sexy, "ripped-from-the-headlines" approach in this Washington-based political thriller.Special Agent for the Secret Service Richard Bauman is accustomed to U.S. President Robert Constable's sexual assignations: the president likes young women, and they like him. But this time something goes wrong and the woman who was having sex with the nation's leader bursts out of the bedroom of the private suite Bauman's guarding and announces that the president is dead. Bauman inexplicably lets the unknown woman leave and finds the naked president on the bed. Rather than call for help, he and another agent dress Constable's remains in his pajamas and put him back to bed before sounding the alarm. Later, following Constable's funeral, Sen. Bobby Hart is approached by Constable's widow, former first lady Hillary, who asks him to investigate what she calls her husband's murder. While the nation has been led to believe that Constable succumbed to natural causes, Hillary tells Bobby her husband was murdered by lethal injection and swears him to secrecy. Hart talks to reporter Quentin Burdick, who was writing a piece on a French company called Four Sisters and its head, Jean de la Valette, and comes to believe that the president's slaying and his business dealings with Four Sisters are intertwined. The book is filled with improbable situations and achingly dull characters who interact with one another with a surplus of metaphors, and readers who like their thrillers active will find the author's writing style sluggish, with much of the narrative devoted to descriptions of each character's facial expressions, appearance, clothing, and mannerisms. The slow-moving tale will also disappoint readers who understand business inside the Beltway, as little of the literary real estate reflects the reality of how things work at the seat of government.A plodding, smarmy attempt to cash in on election-year politics that readers of all political persuasions will find tasteless. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 1, 2016
As in Buffa's The Grand Master (2010), young senator Bobby Hart must turn investigator to prevent a scandal that could rock D.C.if not the world. President Robert Constable dies in bed with a woman not his wife. To avoid an official inquiry, the Secret Service quickly covers up the presence of the lady and the fact that the president was poisoned. Still, the murder of a president demands a solution, so First Lady Hillary Constable asks Hart to investigate. As he tries to figure out who would have the most to gain, one name keeps coming up. The Four Sisters is a secretive French banking institution with investments around the world. Could some of the president's campaign contributions have come with some very dangerous strings? Are those strings being pulled by the bank's last living heir, a man who wants to see a twenty-first-century crusade against all those who oppose Christianity? Of course, there's also an ambitious wife who may find some political capital in being so tragically widowed. A Dan Brown read-alike tailor-made for an election year.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)