The Rules of the Game

October 20, 2008
Downie, from 1991 until early 2008 the Washington Post
's executive editor, delivers a nicely executed newsroom procedural in his fiction debut. Sarah Page, a Washington Capital
investigative reporter who's been assigned to the national politics staff after being chastised for a romantic involvement with a colleague, is covering the presidential race between Democrat Monroe Capehart, an elderly Pennsylvania senator, and Republican Warner Wylie, the U.S. vice president. The race escalates after Susan Cameron, California's popular junior senator, becomes Capehart's running mate. Those looking for similarities between Cameron and Sarah Palin will be disappointed, but the same dramatic possibility that haunts the real campaign occurs shortly after the election is decided. Downie (Justice Denied
) exposes corruption at the highest levels and shows how national security trumps pretty much everything, including justice, in an entertaining if familiar tale of murder, cover-ups and personal courage.

October 15, 2008
Though former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. earned distinction as one of the nation 's finest newspaper editors, who knew that he was clairvoyant? Downie, who recently left the Post, has written a debut novel to be published in January 2008. Titled The Rules of the Game, it introduces a surprise pick for a vice-presidential candidate: a young, attractive woman selected by her much older running mate. "I didn 't think you 'd have the guts, " says a political operative to the presidential nominee, whose health and advanced age are issues in the campaign. "She 's such a big risk …The country loves her, but that 's People magazine stuff. "

The woman selected is 41 years old and inexperienced, having won her first election just two years earlier. Yet she quickly becomes the campaign 's "rock star. " "I can 't remember a presidential nominee being upstaged like this at his own convention, " remarks one reporter. Sound familiar? "You couldn 't sell that scenario to the movies, " writes Downie, who could hardly have known that such a similar scenario would be marketed to voters this fall.

This fictional candidate 's name is Susan rather than Sarah. She 's a California senator rather than Alaska 's governor. And she 's a Democrat rather than a Republican, which provides delicious irony when she 's savaged by "a blond, model-thin, right-wing provocateur, a wildly successful author, " here named Crystal Malone rather than Ann Coulter, who is in turn attacked by the "acerbic " New York columnist Sally McGuire (Maureen Dowd).

Ultimately, the plot goes way deeper than the eerie similarities between Downie 's fiction and the political developments that only a crystal ball could have predicted. The novel 's protagonist is a young investigative reporter named Sarah Page, who works at the Washington Capital. She has trouble keeping her love life separate from her work life, as she stumbles into a conspiracy that makes Watergate look like a school board meeting.

Downie 's command as a novelist can 't compare with his editorial leadership (or his unlikely prognosticative powers). The novel opens with so much who 's-sleeping-with-whom scorekeeping that it makes Washington seem like a political Peyton Place, and it ends on an oddly anticlimactic note.

In the middle, there are a lot of dead bodies. But there 's also a lot that rings true about how investigative reporters work, how newspapers work, how lobbyists work and how politics works. It 's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys, as cynicism runs rampant, corruption leaves a bipartisan stain and elected officials are merely a shadow government for the powers that really run the country. Most of the characters in the novel play by their own rules; some play by no rules at all.

While the layers of revelation should captivate readers, if the rest of the novel proves even a fraction as clairvoyant as the selection of the vice-presidential candidate, Americans across the political spectrum should be very, very afraid.

(COPYRIGHT (2008) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

December 15, 2008
This first novel from a former editor of the "Washington Post" recounts an investigation into the inner circles of Washington's political machinery. Young, beautiful, smart, and ambitious, "Washington Capital" reporter Sarah Page is covering the financial aspect of a presidential election. She begins looking into the dealings of one Trent Tucker, a former acquaintance, who is involved in political consulting, fund-raising, lobbying, and everything else. The book charts the course of the campaign as an aging Democrat is elected, dies suddenly, and is replaced in office by the young and relatively in-experienced woman he had chosen as his vice president in a controversial move. As Sarah digs deeper into the relationships among political advisers, well-connected lobbyists, and businessmen running shadowy military subcontracting firms, she learns of a former high-ranking general who seems to lurk behind most of the biggest deals. Threatening phone calls follow, as do double crosses, murders, and many love affairs and sexual liaisons. Taking cues from recent headlines, the book mentions the Abramoff scandals, and other recent events like the Blackhawk Security Company situation seem to be the taking-off point. A solid mystery novelist, Downie is convincing in his portrayal of the newsroom's operations and personalities, and the plot carries the reader along swiftly. Recommended for all collections.Jim Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 1, 2008
Former Washington Post Executive Editor Downie makes his novelistic debut with this taut, brisk-paced tale of Washington chicanery and perfidy. An elderly Democratic president enters office with an able but inexperienced female vice president and must face all the problems ofthe post-Bush world. Months into his term, the president dies. Even worse, his chief campaign strategist, whois also a lobbyist, has placed other lobbyists in important positions to benefit his corporate clients. At the same time, a young female journalist at the citys top newspaper has just been promoted to the national political desk, and even as she is learning the rules of the game, she uncovers evidence of appalling corruption in defense contracts related to the war on terror, to private security contractors, and to government involvement in the dark sidetorture, rendition, and murder. Despite its ripped-from-the-headlines feel, Downies novel is far more than its real-life parallels. The characters are all fascinating mixes of ego, ambition, andmotive, and the two female leads, in particular, are skillfully etched portraits of the special loneliness that comes from being buffeted by hidden agendas and personal uncertainties. The Rules of the Game is a tense and thrilling first novel about the extended aftermath of 9/11, and its impact is only heightened by the readers suspicion that Downies extrapolations may be veiled hints at revelations to come in the future.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)