Dark Network forces

The Imogen Trager novels offer a compelling critique of the precarious state of democracy.

Faithless Elector, which debuted in the spring of 2016, is a taut thriller about stealing the presidential election.  Its central premise is the latent weaknesses and potential for abuse inherent in the Electoral College.  The precise machinations envisioned in the book have not come to pass (thankfully!), but the larger issues raised by the story remain.

Meanwhile, current events expose the precarious, brittle state of democracy almost daily, as well as its impotency. The weaknesses exploited in Faithless Elector remain latent and prone to mischief...and there are others.  Which sets up the second book, Dark Network (due out in October!). As a novelist,  I've been able to explore these themes within the context of a pacy, compelling story about a search for truth and justice.

Faithless Elector, and Dark Network are not narrowly about political parties, the weakness(es) of the Electoral College, or events which daily overwhelm the news cycle.  They are about ordinary people battling powerful forces. The books (and the forthcoming Consent of the Governed) are about the precarious vulnerability of our democracy and its potential impotency in the face of decisive, ruthless, well-heeled interests.  I'm not a political scientist.  These are thrillers, not conference papers. What compels me as a novelist, are the characters, thrust into dangerous, extraordinary circumstances.

"Governments are instituted among Men," the Declaration of Independence reads, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed".  Taken together, the books shine a glaring light on how that consent can be twisted and negated--and what the emotional response of characters forced into action looks like.

The books have never been about the rightness or fitness of one party or another, except insofar as the "bad guys" seem to be circumventing them.  Parties are, after all, at least responsible and responsive to their constituents; and ideally, when a party no longer has our consent, they are voted out.  Moreover, political parties are the only bulwark against self-dealing elites.  The books appeal to readers on either side of our broadening political divide.

I'm gratified that readers (see Amazon reviews) and independent reviewers have picked up on these broader themes of taut storytelling, dark forces, political accountability and personal responsibility, of the necessity for "ordinary" people to participate in the life of their nation.

To take just three examples:

• Book Viral Review: "Taut and well-paced, but for readers reading between the lines it also works on a moral level."

• "The pleasure of Faithless Elector lies not just its smooth evocative prose, but in the author's justified confidence that good writing can make chases through recognizable locales sufficiently exciting without a Navy SEAL or a terrorist plot." Review, Plattsburgh Press-Republican

• Publishers Weekly Review: "A fast-moving topical thriller...Surprising twists...add up to a highly suspenseful read."

While the books can stand alone, the series is about what can happen when a tiny group seeks extra-democratic means to take control for their own benefit.

In that way, the books may be more prophetic than even I imagined.  You should see for yourself.

 James McCrone is the author of Faithless Elector, a suspense-thriller. Publishers Weekly calls it a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.” The sequel, Dark Network, is coming in October, 2017.

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

Morbid Truth

I’ve always found Horton the Elephant, by Dr. Seuss problematic. I like the notion of saying what you mean and meaning what you say, and staying faithful to one’s word—one hundred per cent.  A good many of us could do with a bit more of it.  But the ending—spoiler alter!—where the baby bird hatches as a hybrid elephant-bird, and the narrator claims, “It should be, it should be; it should be like that,” is ludicrous. Because, while it might be nice to think it should be like that, well…it isn’t.

I realize that in these fantastical fictional worlds anything goes—an elephant sits on an egg through trials and tribulations; doubt and bad weather, but like socially minded Science Fiction, the meaning of the allegory is aimed at the reader. The story deliberately removes an idea or issue from context in order to examine, or discuss it; and since there’s a larger context, authorial proclamations regarding what should be or should not be need to be rigorous.

Dr Suess can be a realist. The vanity, hubris and stupidity of Yurtle the Turtle are pretty stark. But when Dr. Drake in Gertrude McFuzz gives in to the whining protestations of a vain, teenager bird (the titular character) who wants her tail feathers to be as grand as Lalla-Lee-Lou’s, Suess misses a huge point: a Doctor tells the distraught young bird where to find the quick fix pill-berry bush that will make her tail feathers grow.

In essence he writes here a scrip with unlimited refills because she threw a tantrum in his office! Sure, Gertrude is made to look and feel silly at the end, sore, but wiser; but how, I ask you, how does Dr. Drake keep his license? Where’s the “should be?” Where’s the inquest? Does Dr. Drake end up making millions running one of those opioid prescription mills in Florida, still benefitting from misery rather than easing suffering?

Perhaps a hundred years too early (1915), the Irish writer, Edward Plunkett, Lord Dunsany, published a morbid version of The Tortoise and the Hare, discussed here by Atlas Obscura. Dunsany’s version has an interesting moral. In the end, this version of the tale is more about the animal spectators than about the contestants; and, I would hazard, a warning about enshrining in "truth" things you only wish were true; like, say, a shady businessman with no experience running even a publicly traded company, four bankruptices, and no governmental experience could become the president American needs.

In Dunsany’s story, the hare was vain and arrogant, and the spectators enjoyed watching him lose, but then there’s a forest fire at one edge of the woods, and the task of warning the other animals to flee the fire is given to the fastest animal—the tortoise who won the race—and all the woodland creatures perish because the warning doesn’t reach them in time.

 James McCrone is the author of Faithless Elector, a suspense-thriller, 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. Consent of the Governed will be available next year.

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