Fine for Casual Bus and Bedtime Reading

Sedition, as the cover implies, is about some crazy tea partiers who want to mix things up in American politics. The President is dead, the Vice President is dead, and some promnient political  players are making their case to take over the Oval Office. Additionally, the previously-mentioned tea partiers have plans of their own. The only thing stopping them is Matti, a low-level intelligence agent with some family baggage. Also, Matti is objectively hot but doesn’t know it! One day, Matti’s gruff and CYA-focused boss puts Matti on the crazy tea party case. You can probably guess where things go from there.

There is one thing that I enjoyed about this book. The premise of a Constitutional question over who would become President in the event of the President’s death and a VP vacancy was novel and thought-provoking. It seems like Mr. Abrahams did some research. It added a fun level of realism to the story.

Here is what I  did not enjoy about the book: First, there is no depth to any character. They are cardboard cutouts of characters. For example, one guy is a vain professor (“the professor”), one guy drinks (“the drunk”), one guy is from overseas (“the knight”) and calls everyone “good man”. That is pretty much the characterization of the major players in the story. Another thing that I didn’t like was that the book was written in a style resembling that of Grisham or Clancy or Berenson or maybe Koontz, but the writing in this book was often flat or sharp. A lot of times thriller writers are to the point or matter of fact about grisly details – this book would tell you in matter-of-fact fashion which hand a waiter was using to hold coffee and which hand held a pen.

This book didn’t work for me. However, I should note that Mr. Abrahams has a cool hybrid career of traditional publishing and self-pub. He has an audience. I am not part of that audience, although if you are into thrillers you may give him a whirl.