The Liberty Intrigue, by Tom Grace

Where is Ross Egan when we need him?!

Talk about a timely novel.  Tom Grace's The Liberty Intrigue is set during election season.  The sitting president is liberal and corrupt, but the Republicans have a wide array of candidates, beating each other up in the primaries, none of them rising to the top.  A few short weeks ago, this was the story for the Republicans; for what it's worth the nomination has been sealed up by Romney by now.  Back to the novel: over in Africa, Ross Egan, a somewhat obscure American electrical engineer has risen in prominence and leadership in a nation that has just come out of a civil war and is now instituting American-style democratic reforms.  He and the president of the African nation become co-recipients of the Nobel Prize.  Unable to come to a consensus at their nominating convention, the Republicans draft the independent Egan.

Egan is exactly the candidate tea-party, free-market, freedom-loving Republicans long for, without the baggage that so many candidates bring, and with a practical means to solve America's energy problem.  That's a weakness of the book: the reader ends up frustrated by the end, faced with the reality of the candidates he has to hold his nose to choose among.  While Egan is wholly fictional, one character in The Liberty Intrigue is immediately recognizable.  Conservative talk-show host Garr Denby is a completely unveiled tribute to Rush Limbaugh.  I think some of the phrases must have been taken directly from the show.  Oh, and the sitting president?  Let's just hope that Grace isn't privy to some insider information; the picture he paints does not compliment Obama!

Besides conservative politics and talk-radio hosts, Grace also gives a not to Ayn Rand.  You may recall the catchphrase from Atlas Shrugged, "Who is John Galt?"  In several scenes in that novel, the phrase shows up by surreptitious means.  Similarly, throughout The Liberty Intrigue, the phrase, "Who is I" appears, accompanied by selective blackouts and computer hacking.

As much as I loved the message of the book, I will admit that after the opening scenes, I got a bit bogged down.  It seemed like Denby's monologues got a bit too long. . . .  But after the halfway point or so, the story recovered and became a fun read.  Now if we could only find a real Ross Egan!