Are Snakes Necessary?

January 6, 2020
The 2016 reelection campaign of Sen. Lee Rogers of Pennsylvania, a philandering scoundrel, drives this disappointing political thriller from filmmaker De Palma and former New York Times editor Lehman. At a chance encounter with a former flame, Jenny Cours, Rogers meets her 18-year-old daughter, Fanny, who’s a political junkie eager to help his campaign. Known as the Hunk of the Hill on Capitol Hill, Rogers agrees to hire Fanny, who’s “in the full flush of carnality,” as a videographer. He soon lures her into his bed. Their relationship proves dangerous for Rogers after Fanny vanishes, and Jenny’s persistent search for her daughter places the politician in law enforcement’s crosshairs. A subplot involving a remake of the Hitchcock film Vertigo set at the Eiffel Tower sets the stage for a risible climax. The predictable and tired plot twists aren’t helped by the authors’ portrayal of present-day politics as if the 2016 presidential campaign never happened. This would have worked better as an intentional parody of the genre.

February 28, 2020

DEBUT In this first book by director De Palma (Blow Out; Carrie; Scarface) and former New York Times editor Lehman, parallel narratives follow caddish, smooth-talking Sen. Lee Rogers, as he runs for office and seduces his young and comely campaign videographer, Fanny Cours; and Las Vegas trophy wife Elizabeth DeCarlo Diamond, who longs to escape her life in a gilded cage. The senator and the trophy wife have someone in common: unscrupulous, conniving Barton Brock, Rogers's fixer. Barton betrayed Elizabeth years ago, an act that landed him the job as Lee's hatchet man. He'll need all his dirty tricks and more when Fanny goes missing, and her mother, an earlier conquest of Lee's, is determined to find her. The action culminates in Paris, high atop the Eiffel Tower, where a film crew is shooting a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. You just know somebody's going over that railing. Meanwhile, in a remote Maine cabin, Elizabeth is restless again. Her gig as an anonymous advice columnist to put-upon women isn't enough, and she yearns to help her correspondents in a more proactive way. VERDICT De Palma and Lehman stuff their book with cinematic tropes, unrealistic characters, and predictable plot twists, but somehow it's still an overall exciting read.--Liz French, Library Journal

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2020
This is a deliciously deceptive novel by noted film director De Palma (Scarface; The Untouchables; Mission: Impossible) and former New York Times editor Lehman. What begins as a Christopher Buckley-style comedy-drama about a philandering politician, his ambitious fix-it man, and some very beautiful women transitions to a dark thriller in which, as its conclusion approaches, the authors execute some plot twists and revelations that would be right at home in a De Palma movie (something in the mode of Dressed to Kill or Body Double). This is a pleasure to read. The tale has dozens of moving parts, each of which must work in perfect synchronization with the others to avoid bringing the whole enterprise to a screeching halt. The writing is nearly pitch-perfect, too: lightly comic in some scenes, darker and more ominous in others. When the surprises start to come, one after another, with increasing rapidity, we realize there have been a few subplots running behind the scenes, just out of our view, that have suddenly become visible, altering the whole texture of the novel. A wonderful, immensely satisfying thriller.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)