After U.S. President Bruce Jansen's pregnant wife is assassinated, he seeks to end gun violence through fiat, revoking gun rights and enacting a number of other measures that turn the United States into a dictatorship while his friends and colleagues struggle to restore the country's freedom.
The novel’s vast cast of characters showcases the turbulent fight for justice and what’s right for the country, while some use the power struggle for their own purposes. In the midst of this horror is a beacon of hope. Adler-Olsen writes as if he’s lived in the United States his entire life, and the novel reads as if it were written recently, not years ago. This thought-provoking and timely political thriller shows the author can craft more than compelling crime scenarios.
Congress is shut down. Undocumented immigrants are deported, borders are closed, and the press is censored. Opponents disappear. White House employee Dorothy 'Doggie' Rogers and press secretary Wesley Barefoot must work with their old friends from the PR campaign—Sheriff T. Perkins, charismatic Rosalie Lee, and NBC journalist John Bugatti—to convince Americans that the new order is the product of a treacherous coup ... this nightmarish portrait reveals how easily democracy can slide into autocracy, scaring the apathy out of readers.
Stepping away from his Department Q series to deliver this politically-charged standalone novel, Jussi Adler-Olsen’s timely new thriller offers a terrifying glimpse at what could happen under the right circumstances should the president ever lose his mind and begin acting out of control to serve his personal agenda instead of serving the American people. Overall, The Washington Decree has a great setup for a conspiracy thriller, but the execution, while not bad, isn’t great, either ... it...never really lives up to the hype ... In the end, there is a somewhat valuable message for readers, and the timely plot threads will no doubt resonate with some Americans, while, quite frankly, others (depending on their political leanings) will absolutely hate it.
