When ideologies collide: Faithless Elector and Dark Network

Faithless Elector, and its sequel, Dark Network are stories about courage, duty, fidelity and a belief in ideology: and what happens when those qualities and ideologies collide.

The Electoral College vote has passed (Dec. 19)--not without incident or intrigue--and although the specific events described in my novel, Faithless Elector, did not happen, the fact is they could have happened. Faithless Elector is a work of fiction, after all, not a prediction.  The events described in the novel would throw the nation into chaos, precisely what the protagonists risk their lives to prevent.

Dark Network, draft cover

While the thrillers Faithless Elector, and its sequel, Dark Network (coming soon!) take current events as their impetus, they are first and foremost taut, plot-driven stories contending with themes that endure after the headlines have faded and events in the real world have expressed themselves. The stories are about courage, duty, fidelity and a belief in ideology: and what happens when those qualities and ideologies collide.  And as long as the Electoral College endures, the latent possibility for mischief and malfeasance also endures.

In Faithless Elector, a small, deadly efficient conspiracy seeks to overturn the result of a close election by getting a number of Electors to switch their votes, to become "faithless electors."  The conspirators operate in the shadows, but they seem to be everywhere.

In Dark Network, it becomes clear that the conspirators are still trying to influence the outcome.  The protagonist, FBI Agent Imogen Trager, must fight against time, a sinister network clinging to life and hope--even her own colleagues--to find out who is still trying to steal the election and stop them. There is barely one month until the inauguration...

In both books, each group of actors--the conspirators and the protagonists--believe they are doing the right thing.  The protagonists must ask themselves how far they are prepared to go in defense of their principles before they have abandoned them all along the way.

 James McCrone is the author of Faithless Elector, a suspense-thriller, that

Publishers Weekly calls a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.” The sequel, Dark Network, is coming soon.

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.
If you live in Philadelphia, pick up a copy at Head House Books -or- Penn Book Center

Faithless Elector's Enduring Themes

"Every nation gets the government it deserves," Joseph de Maistre observed in 1811. Do we also get the literature we deserve?

In the most recent review of the book, in the Plattsburgh Press Republican, the reviewer, Lauren Kiefer, begins by talking about her state of mind as she approached reading this thriller:

"I have to confess that the phrase 'political thriller' tends to make me brace myself for a combination of the predictable and the cringe-worthy: action-heroes and women in jeopardy in steamy romances; predictable plots with implausible twists; and in the worst cases, a not-so-hidden political agenda on the part of the author."

http://bit.ly/2eJ5gHb

I know what she means.

I have stopped reading a great many such books myself.  In fact, I briefly considered not calling the novel a thriller because of the negative associations.  Fortunately, Prof. Kiefer goes on to say that not only does Faithless Elector not fall into those sloppy cliches, it is compellingly well written while delivering the goods:

"The pleasure of James McCrone’s Faithless Elector lies not just in its smooth yet evocative prose but in its professorial hero and its equally intelligent FBI-agent heroine; in their relative and believable sexual restraint while both their lives and our nation’s democracy are being threatened; and in the author’s justified confidence that good writing can make chases through recognizable locales (freeway, building, city streets) sufficiently exciting without a Navy SEAL or a terrorist plot."

So why is there so much dreck out there?

One of my mentors at the University of Washington, Charles Johnson (Oxherding Tale, Middle Passage, Dreamer) used to exhort his students to write the kinds of books we would like to read ourselves.  And he, as did others, imparted what is essentially a contract the writer has with the reader:

• Write what you yourself would like to read
• Remember, you're telling a story; get on with it
• Don't talk down to the reader
• Don't dumb-down your ideas
• Don't cheat--i.e. don't for the sake of suspense withhold information vital to the story, or introduce a character right at the end who sews everything up

There are many more commandments, but certainly as one begins writing all alone in a room it is helpful--and comforting--to construe a reader and to keep the above basics foremost in the mind.  It is equally helpful to conceive of the story one tells as an organic entity, with wants, dislikes, and to be in service to those needs.

I love thrillers.  I love politics.  I wrote a political thriller.

Some of my favorites growing up (and still!) are LeCarre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold; Graham Greene's The Quiet American; Day of the Jackal, by Frederick Forsyth; Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy; Laidlaw, by William McIlvanney.  They are varied titles and writers, but they are all thoughtful, thought-provoking, immersive, precise.  In the case of Greene and McIlvanney, these 'gateway' works led me on to others.  And others.

Each of the thrillers I love draws its energy from a character who is compelled to action because what is happening is wrong, and they are pitted against forces larger than themselves. Each has a moral center, a generosity of spirit--a belief in the face of the facts that things could and should be better (or at the very least, different). Graham Greene's main characters are generally cynics; but what I learned from reading his books is that a cynic isn't someone who doesn't care at all, but someone who cares too much.

Maybe there are so many poor examples of literature in general (and thrillers specifically) precisely because we permit them by accepting the substandard: works that cheat, that dumb-down, or are polemics masquerading as literature, even when something better exists. If, as in politics, we reward substandard candidates and refuse to scrutinize party platforms even at the level of verisimilitude, why would anything change?

While the immediate impetus that gave rise to Faithless Elector has passed, its themes still resonate--themes of vigilance, dedication to one's principles, courage.  In a post-2016 election world, it will be easy for some to wallow in cynicism. As Greene's characters would show us, cynicism has a kind of hypnotic attraction, an inward narcotic allure.  Cynicism is false, and it is a trap.  Good literature offers a hero caught up in fantastic forces, forced into action by circumstance.

I've been pleased by the reactions and overwhelmingly positive reviews for Faithless Elector. It's been quite a journey, and I am hopeful it is not near ending.

NOTE: Charles Johnson has recently published The Way of the Writer: Reflections on the Art and Craft of Storytelling.

 James McCrone is the author of Faithless Elector, a suspense-thriller, that

Publishers Weekly calls a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.” The sequel, Dark Network, is coming soon.

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.
If you live in Philadelphia, pick up a copy at Head House Books -or- Penn Book Center

As American as Baseball

Saturday 17-December

New rules for baseball

The Electoral College is as American as baseball. And like baseball, the Electoral College system for electing the president often engenders the same frustrating sense of being a bystander in a game you're ostensibly playing: in the final inning of a game, for example, the pitcher could walk the bases full and then walk in a run or give up a home run. Even as a player on the field you are left with only the hollow, impotent rage of an onlooker, having had no part to play, having not even touched the ball.

Why does the similarity stop there?

The popularity and continued use of the Electoral College should inspire those of us who love the game--as we love the Republic--to greater depths.  If winner-take-all is indeed our national spirit, why must America's game cling to its outmoded scoring?  Total number of runs over nine innings is clearly too simple-minded a way of determining a winner, and likely to stir up passions.

Therefore, in order to address the unfair, un-American scoring discrepancy baseball presents, I would like to modestly propose a new set of plurality rules for scoring a baseball game:

• The team who scores the most runs in a particular inning will be awarded ALL of the runs scored in that inning by either team. 

To illustrate: let us say, in the first inning Team 'A' scored 3 runs and Team 'B' scored 2.  Under electoral scoring, Team 'A' having received more runs that 'B' would receive all 5 runs scored in that inning.

Then, (to continue the scenario) if in the following inning, 'B' scored 3 runs and 'A' none, the running score would be 'A'-5 vs. 'B'- 3, each having won an inning and been awarded all the points that inning carried.

I'm sure we can all agree that this makes much more sense.

Having awarded the points thusly, after 9 innings there could still be a tie, of course.  In the new electoral plurality rules, the teams would play a 10th inning but to continue playing past that is pointless.  If, at the end of the 10th inning, there is still a tie, the decision as to who has won the contest would be remanded to a responsible body, with knowledge of the teams, players and their capabilities.

There could be no better group than living members of the Baseball Hall of Fame to weigh, consider and decide which team should win, a college Baseball Elders.  Like the electoral college, there could be some simple safeguards in place, such as a restriction on voting for a team on which an Elder had previously played.

What could be more American?


For a primer of past blog posts on the issues surrounding the Electoral College, click the links below: from the issues surrounding popular vote winners losing in the Electoral College, to Faithless Electors, to the democratic deficit inherent in the apportioning of EC votes.

Electoral College and the Popular Vote (19-July-2016)

Contested Convention and Faithless Electors (17-July-2016)

Power of the Small States, Part 1 -and- Part 2 (21-April-2016)

Alexander Hamilton & The First Contested Election (30-August-2016)

 James McCrone is the author of Faithless Elector, a suspense-thriller, that

Publishers Weekly calls a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.” The sequel, Dark Network, is coming soon.

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.
If you live in Philadelphia, pick up a copy at Head House Books -or- Penn Book Center