If you’ve been missing Barack Obama and Joe Biden, this book might be a bit of a balm for you. It’s a fun, satirical mystery novel featuring Obama and Biden as amateur sleuths out to solve the mystery of an Amtrack conductor’s death.
Andrew Shaffer has penned other novels and this is his first mystery. He’s a satirist and I don’t read much in this vein, but I literally LOL’d when I first saw the cover of this novel and knew I had to read it.
Although Obama and Biden star as amateur sleuths, this novel is not a political mystery. Biden is the narrator and the mystery begins when one of his old work acquaintances, a man who started his career with Amtrack the same year Biden started as a congressman, is found dead. On his person is a map to Biden’s house. Thus begins the mystery.
Hope Never Dies is embedded with campaign slogans, insider jokes, and good-natured swipes aimed at politicians. I’m not an Obama-Biden aficionado but knew enough for this novel to have tickled my funny bone. People who are more into politics might get jokes that whooshed over my head.
Let me give you a taste. In this example, Biden is driving Obama’s SUV, The Little Beast, and they’re chasing a motorcycle. Obama and his long-suffering secret service guy are passengers:
The motorcycle whipped around a midsized sedan with Vermont plates, and I did the same, keeping pace. As we passed the sedan, I caught glimpse of a small tuft of white hair poking out above the bottom of the window. The driver’s head was so low, it was a miracle he could see. A pair of bony hands hung from the steering wheel like Halloween decorations.
“Everybody wave to Bernie,” I said.
Nobody laughed at my joke.
The mystery is pretty good, but the best part is imaging Obama and Biden rekindling their bromance with an amateur sleuthing adventure.
Title: Hope Never Dies: An Obama Biden Mystery
Author: Andrew Shaffer
Publisher: Quirk Books
Release date: July 10, 2018
Source: Advance reader copy via BookExpo
Bottom line: A fun and irreverent mystery that’s the perfect beach read for those pining away for Obama and Biden.