Book Review: 'Second Term' Is a Political Thriller With a Familiar Ring

The publication of “Second Term,” a political suspense tale by former CBS and NBC international journalist J.M. Adams, could not be better timed, given the still-evolving news of the Republican front-runner and 2020 election-denier’s legal troubles, pending investigations and ominous dog whistle appeals to his followers. If Adams’s scenario, which starts in 2012 in Benghazi, then moves to December 2028 and January 6, 2029, seems partisan-prophetic and over-the-top conspiratorial, take another look at what’s going on.

Dedicated to the Capitol Police for their heroic acts protecting members of Congress and helping “preserve the very pillars of our fragile democracy,” and also bearing an epigraph from Marcus Aurelius — “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane,” — the book makes no secret of despising Trump, closely paraphrasing his more outrageous comments, including observations about his eating and sexual proclivities. Of course, President Terrance B. Locke (as in “Locke and Load” ) is fictional, right? though he does obsess over reclaiming the throne at any cost, including fomenting un-civil war. He’s just lost the presidential race by 22 million votes, but he’s on the attack, with his enablers.

Adams also takes critical aim at those who still cannot accept women in positions of power. His heroine-protagonist, Cora Walker, a highly trained and skilled military sharpshooter, will put that myth to rest. In Part I, which takes place in Libya in 2012, she stands down her male colleagues with extraordinary intelligence and alacrity, as she tries to save a U.S. Ambassador from assassination. Of course, as a woman, her warning of an imminent terrorist plot is not believed. The men around her, though, soon change their minds when they see her in action. The on-the-ground battle that ensues in Benghazi, full of military lingo and shorthand code, shows Adams at his best, reimagining the sights, sounds and smells of North Africa in September 2012. The prose crackles with authentic details and savvy, terse exchanges that reflect time spent abroad in war zones.

The bulk of the narrative, however, Parts II and III, are set in and around Washington, D.C. 16 years later and focus on Cora as an assistant to the Speaker of the House, Sarah Vasquez. They center on the political machinations behind what will surely be massive chaos and killing if the ego-maniacal former president is not stopped trying to reclaim the office and sowing discord among America’s intelligence and security communities. Cora’s job is demanding because she’s not really in charge of communications, but protection. Since Benghazi, the country has morphed into the deeply polarized landscape readers will recognize as our own. Cora, a single mom, has her hands full. But she is up to the job, it would seem, coolly living by the edict “let the bridges I burn light my way.”

In an effort to save the Speaker and the country Cora finds herself in dubious league with an all-powerful right-wing extremist congressman who has radical plans (“a nuclear option”) in place he says for stopping the maniacal former president. Who’s friend, who’s foe, who can be trusted? “This can’t be happening,” Cora thinks. “This is piss poor fiction because it’s so wildly unrealistic. And yet, here we are.”

Though Cora has an eight-year-old daughter (strangely, readers don’t learn with whom or why — is there a sequel on the way?), this subplot, keeping her safe, occupies a good deal of sections II and III but is not proportionately integrated into the larger narrative. Part III may also appear to be too obvious, especially given an epithet from Diogenes, “The Mob is the Mother of Tyrants.” Still, for a debut novel informed with an imperative message for our country, Adams generates suspenseful concern, if not anxiety, about an unchecked alpha-predator, sharper than his real-life counterpart, who continues to game the system with increasingly dire effects. Like George Orwell, who in 1949 set “Nineteen Eighty Four” in the future, Adams is saying, you’ve been warned. The time is now.