Inside The Beltway Fiction

The Good Lie – Tom Rosenstiel (ECCO)

Tom Rosenstiel literally wrote THE book on journalism, in the form of Elements of Journalism, and has been a inside the Beltway observer for decades from his perch at the American Press Institute, so it’s not surprising that he has created a series of fiction reads that balance DC insider knowledge and insights into the newspaper/media industry.

The second installment in the Peter Rena/Randi Brooks political fixers series The Good Lie offers up storyline that, while it shows similarities to the Benghazi situation, also features an insider knowledge of the comings and goings of the very political side of Washington.

Rena, a former military investigator who went onto a career as a Senate staffer who hung out his shingle as a consultant, is one of those memorable characters, smart, with a gruff exterior and an honorable edge that cuts against the “normal” comings and goings in DC political circles. Rena drives the story through its paces as those in the circle around the President try to keep the lid on the cover up of what actually happened in North Africa when a renegade Army general died in a terrorist attack on a U.S. embassy.

As the story unfolds, Rena and company are tasked with conducting and independent investigation, to get answers for the President. It is that inner circle that tries mightily to keep the lid slapped tight, but soon the story begins to trickle out and the media side of things start to push Rena’s investigation closer to the truth. It is the truth that is at the root of not on the story but the concept behind the The Good Lie. Rosenstiel has hit on another winner and will have you looking toward what is next for Peter Rena.

I Hear Mute People

The Silent Patient – Alex Michaelides (Celadon)

Every once in a while, a book comes along that has a reputation that proceeds its arrival onto bookstore shelves. Alex Michaelides debut novel, The Silent Patient, is one of those books; a unique, yet pretty straight forward story as psychological thrillers go. 

The tale involves a seemingly troubled, beautiful artist, who stands accused of murdering her husband and then goes mute, not uttering a single word in her own defense. Assumed to be psychologically challenged, Alicia Berenson is confined to a mental institution; where a series of psychotherapy professionals try to break through the wall she has built up around herself.

 

Enter, Theo Faber, a psychotherapist who seems utterly hellbent to work with Alicia and boldly go where no therapist has successfully gone before and bring her back to the world of the living and speaking. It’s the hellbent part that should be tip off for folks who want to try to figure out where all this is heading.

As with all great psychological thrillers – you will either have the breakthrough you seek, or you will upon the story’s conclusion do a healthy face palm for not realizing the path that you have been on all along. While The Silent Patient, is very well put together, I was able to see a bit of the classic, The Sixth Sense in between the lines and that Faber was a whole lot bigger to this story than just a hyper interested, committed metal health practitioner. That best guess on my part, may have reduced my overall impression and the impact of the story for me.