Line of Succession

By Brian Garfield

Book Overview

Five bombs upend the foundation of the American governmentSturka is an artist with explosives. A sturdy man approaching middle age, he learned his trade on the darkest battlefields of the twentieth... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B000HW0U2O
• Release Date: January 1974
• Publisher: Dell
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Presidential succession in an action-adventure context

This book, written about thirty years ago, is an action-adventure novel dealing with issues of presidential succession and disability. The book raises issues that could easily arise today, probably (but not necessarily) in a less dramatic context. The vice-president and speaker are killed in a terrorist attack, the president-elect is kidnapped then killed, and the president pro tem is politically unacceptable to both political parties, so the defeated outgoing president schemes to amend the Presidential Succession Act so that he can stay in office instead of handing over power. (The book sidesteps a potential problem with the twenty-second amendment because the outgoing president has served only one term.) The action is plausible, and the author correctly applies the relevant constitutional and legal provisions without letting them get in the story's way. A good, fast, provocative read that, even after thirty years, requires little suspension of disbelief.