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The latest epic adventure from the odd couple of bestseller James Patterson and former US President Bill Clinton might just change my life. Weighing in at just over 600 pages, this brick of a book could be the one that finally makes a Kindle reader out of me.
It is a straight-forward action adventure that would have made for a tight little 300-page thriller, and I can’t help but wonder if the super-sized story is a side product of having two authors. Did they end up trapped in a Mexican stand-off each filing one more chapter until a brave editor finally stepped in and called a halt?
It revolves around former US President Matt Keating who, after being unceremoniously dumped out of the White House by his former vice-president, finds his attempt at a quiet life shattered when his daughter is kidnapped. The kidnapper is a Bin Laden-style terrorist mastermind, who holds Keating responsible for the death of his own family and wants revenge.
Unfortunately for him, Keating not only has the mobile phone number of various intelligence bosses around the world, he’s also a former special forces soldier who can kill a man with his bare hands, so the reader is rarely in doubt as to how it will end.
That lack of tension is a problem, but the plot rattles along entertainingly enough and the introduction of a minor character - a Chinese spy playing both sides against each other - brings a few complications to a story that is otherwise just a little too straightforward.
Bizarrely, given Clinton’s input, there is precious little politics in the book - and what there is never really rises above the cliché of the Washington insider playing political games with life or death decisions in the White House.
Cynics would say Patterson has only taken on the former President to boost his sales, but given he can happily shift millions of books on his own I’m not sure he needs him. Maybe he should dump his running mate and get back to working solo?
The President’s Daughter by Bill Clinton & James Patterson (Cornerstone, £20)
