James's Reviews > To Kill the Truth

Unfamiliar with his particular brand of writing, I wasn't sure what to expect from Friedland, but this was an above-average take on the genre. It had a good mystery to solve rather than relying on action sequences, and I found it a refreshing change that there were fewer just-in-time physical feats.

Instead the problem is finding out who is responsible for the destruction of valuable texts and their back-up copies, as an unidentified baddie destroys written history. Along the way we meet not-Steve Bannon, along with other alt-right composite characters. Friedland just stays on the right side of didactic in not-Bannon's flawed treatise, as there are less blatantly horrible figures who ask similar, if more moderate, questions. I generally found the moral forays interesting, and they did not disrupt the flow of the story.

I also felt the characters had a degree of moral ambiguity, with their own selfish desires competing with their wish to do good. The protagonist, after a very Liberal approach to feminism, basically laughs at her sister for seeing a therapist, which is not the progressive viewpoint. Politicians and other assorted cast members have both positive and negative traits even as minor characters, and it made a change for the reader to question most characters' allegiances. The major character flaw was the protagonist's job, a pragmatic political operator suddenly enrolled as a private investigator.

The only other considerable fault was the premise itself, as it was too reminiscent of an omnipotent Bond villain, with an overall gang leader so wealthy and powerful that he can order murders of Holocaust survivors without encountering resistance from the executors. Given how crucial the plot is to events, it's difficult to say whether this was a minor or major problem, but I was able to look past it. And it was a good job, as otherwise this was intelligent and enjoyable.