A blockbuster book from two powerful authors.

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny co-authored the intense political thriller State Of Terror, (Thorndike Press ISBN-13-1-4328-8983-8) a page-turning thriller on a grand scale. If you like insight into the intrigue of our political system, this book is written to your taste.

Madame Ellen Adams, sixty-seventh Secretary of State, newly appointed by a president whom she campaigned against with her international media empire, is pulled into an international crises when three buses in London are blown away with bombs placed by a conspiracy of anti-government terrorists. Her son, journalist Gil Bahar, was on one of these buses when he received a tip. Gil tries to evacuate the bus but is thrown off by the driver. This saves his life, leaving him with some significant injuries.

And thus begins the international chess game for the capture of the ultimate bad guy, Doctor Bashir Shah, dealer in weapons of mass destruction and friend of the Russian Mafia, the Taliban and other extremists committed to ending the American way of life by using nuclear weapons. There are three such “dirty bombs” in the United States, hidden and set to explode in urban areas, including one in the White House.

The race to stop this from happening takes you on a worldwide chase to find the nuclear scientist responsible for the bombs, to find the bombs and defuse them, and keep Ellen Adams' family and friends safe from terrorists who would kill them. Most of all, to foil Bashir Shah's plan to end America, including the ignorant ex-President’s support for his “friendship” with the terrorist.

One of the things I like best is the portrayal of Erick Dunn, a loosely based lambasting of the very real Donald Trump. The authors draw down Trump like a gassed and pinned butterfly on the brutal backboard of the incidental, internal destruction that his reign created.

Hillary's insider expertise and Louise Penny's power with words provide unsurpassed thrills throughout the book, often leaving you with chills from the realistic possibilities of such a scene actually occurring in this dangerous vision of an unprotected America. Regardless of what you might think about Mrs. Clinton's term as a Secretary of State under Barack Obama, she learned the elements of the job and the personalities within Washington's subset of power hungry politicians. The book rings with the true machinations of Washington's insiders.

Reviewers have noted similarities in this novel to husband Bill Clinton's two novels about Washington crises. His protagonist-hero is a president. Her protagonist-heroine is Secretary of State.

Louise Penny is a Canadian author with her own series of seventeen thrillers that take place in Twin Pines, Quebec, a location that appears in this book as a nod to Penny’s novels. It's a nice side line. Likewise, the other characters are based on real people in Hillary's life, lovingly included as a piece of reality. You come to know and care about them.

For its thrills and chills, I recommend State of Terror. It gives you a mind-altering taste of what could be in this dangerous world we live in.