{"id":16,"date":"2008-01-01T17:14:57","date_gmt":"2008-01-02T01:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostlynf.wordpress.com\/2008\/01\/01\/the-book-of-fate-brad-meltzer\/"},"modified":"2008-01-01T17:14:57","modified_gmt":"2008-01-02T01:14:57","slug":"the-book-of-fate-brad-meltzer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stevecampion.com\/MostlyNF\/?p=16","title":{"rendered":"The Book of Fate (Brad Meltzer)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Maybe a half dozen novels make their way into my stack each year. While I&#8217;m <i>mostly <\/i>NF, I still enjoy a good story now and then. It&#8217;s good to explore an imaginary world for a while, compare it to the real one, or just get caught up in the tale. I hope you, dear reader, don&#8217;t mind my occasional foray into fiction.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2234\/2156797620_5e96a4fb76_m.jpg\" align=\"right\">The cover art and advertising for <strong><em>The Book of Fate<\/em><\/strong> [<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.librarything.com\/work\/1014688\" title=\"The Book of Fate\">LibraryThing<\/a> \/ <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/oclc\/64592069&amp;referer=brief_results\" title=\"The Book of Fate\">WorldCat<\/a>], Brad Meltzer&#8217;s latest novel, gives the impression that, like <em>The Da Vinci Code<\/em> [<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.librarything.com\/work\/3123767\" title=\"The Da Vinci Code\">LibraryThing<\/a> \/ <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/oclc\/50920659&amp;referer=brief_results\" title=\"The Da Vinci Code\">WorldCat<\/a>],\u00a0<em>The Rule of Four<\/em> [<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.librarything.com\/work\/3040\" title=\"The Rule of Four\">LibraryThing<\/a> \/ <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/oclc\/54006990&amp;referer=brief_results\" title=\"The Rule of Four\">WorldCat<\/a>],\u00a0and <em>The Secret Supper<\/em> [<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.librarything.com\/work\/392217\" title=\"The Secret Supper\">LibraryThing<\/a> \/ <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/oclc\/62282461&amp;referer=brief_results\" title=\"The Secret Supper\">WorldCat<\/a>],\u00a0it&#8217;s a murder mystery whose answer lies deep in some centuries-old secret society. Meltzer dips into the history of the Freemasons a bit, but his book is really a modern conspiracy novel, plain and simple.<\/p>\n<p>Wes Holloway, an ambitious young presidential aide, is struck in the face by a bullet during an assassination attempt in the first chapter. The president survives, but deputy chief of staff Ron Boyle is killed.<\/p>\n<p>Fast foward eight years&#8230; A scarred and less career-minded Holloway is still working for the (now former) president when he catches a glimpse of Boyle in Malaysia. If that was Boyle, Holloway wonders, then what really happened eight years ago?<\/p>\n<p>Digging for clues in the assassination videotape, and accepting the help of a female gossip columnist who dreams of becoming a Woodward or Bernstein, Holloway starts to unravel the truth. That prompts some people in powerful government positions to start watching his every move. Oh&#8230; almost forgot. The crazed assassin gets loose again, too.<\/p>\n<p>The book was more suspenseful and enjoyable than expected. It had all the hints of being a <i>Da Vinci Code<\/i> rip-off, but the secret society stuff was kept to a minimum and the story stayed primarily in the present. The believable characters acted out of their own self-interest with no ancient brotherhood to protect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maybe a half dozen novels make their way into my stack each year. While I&#8217;m mostly NF, I still enjoy a good story now and then. It&#8217;s good to explore an imaginary world for a while, compare it to the &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stevecampion.com\/MostlyNF\/?p=16\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[258,260,181,207],"class_list":["post-16","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","tag-fiction","tag-government","tag-presidency","tag-suspense"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stevecampion.com\/MostlyNF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stevecampion.com\/MostlyNF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stevecampion.com\/MostlyNF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stevecampion.com\/MostlyNF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stevecampion.com\/MostlyNF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.stevecampion.com\/MostlyNF\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stevecampion.com\/MostlyNF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stevecampion.com\/MostlyNF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stevecampion.com\/MostlyNF\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}