Douglas J. Wood's Presidential Conclusions: A Book Review

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Presidential Conclusions, by Douglas J. Wood, finishes up the three part Samantha Harrison series. Much like the novel’s predecessors, Wood places terrorism front and center for the novel. Unlike in previous editions, the reader seemingly spends more time with the terrorists than the political protagonists themselves. While Presidential Intentions set the scene by establishing Harrison as an icon and Presidential Declarations sported a terrorist attack that ravaged Washington DC, the nation’s government, and tested Harrison’s resolve, in this edition Harrison is firmly entrenched as the nation’s president. Outside of this fact, Harrison has begun a crusade to redraw country lines and subdivide the Muslim world.

Beyond this peace creating drive, Harrison seeks council in former presidents. By creating a presidential council of sorts, she activates former Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Clinton. While Obama is blacklisted from the novel by Wood’s obvious political prejudices, Harrison seeks council in these former political leaders and even uses them as political pack mules at times (which knowing their real life personas, is surprising at times). Yet the plot fixates on terror, the jihad, the evil of evil in the author’s mind. He creates an elaborate terror program, one tied to the attacks that took place in 2019, and then uses foreign extradition and torture to extract knowledge. Perhaps more than the other two novels, Wood’s political slants appear, yet he still crafts Harrison as a political moderate. In her, the country gets a leader they can trust even if they do not love her.

That said, Wood crafts a fitting conclusion to his series here. While Amanda Harrison still lacks character development, she plays her role well. Watts’ loss is savage and unpredictable, a great story telling twist, but the reaction rings contrary both to what society and Harrison herself had been set up to yield. Torture is dealt with, but not with love or hate, but with an antiseptic feel. Terror, torture, bombings, they happen in this world, and Harrison is tailor made to deal with their plights.

Douglas J. Wood’s Presidential Declarations: A Book Review

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Douglas J. Wood’s Presidential Declarations is the sequel to his 2014 novel Presidential Intentions, and is the second book in the Samantha Harrison trilogy. While I did not stumble onto this novel on my own and was asked to review the series by Wood’s press team, I found this text to be a worthy sequel that built upon the foundation that Wood established with his freshman effort.

In terms of plot, the novel follows Harrison’s life starting two years post 2016 presidential election, starting with Harrison’s failure to win her state’s senate seat. In the wake of an uncertain future, Eric Cantor, now the Governor of Virginia, nominates Harrison to a recently vacated House seat. Yet, within in weeks of reentering Washington as a lawmaker, Harrison finds herself appointed to the post of Secretary of State for the very president that beat her in the 2016 presidential race. Eyes set on 2020, Harrison struggles to occupy her role for the country while holding on to her political aspirations.

At this point, Harrison enters a twisted and at times entrancing political thriller. Her role places her in danger, sticks her into the hands of Hamas, and allows her to assume control of the country when a terrorist attack decimates Washington D.C. and leaves President Clinton incapacitated. Bombs explode, terrorists are detained, and life goes on. As Vonnegut would say, “So it goes.”

At times, Wood dazzles, especially when he tosses politics aside and focuses on story telling. Instead of debating the success of Obama or Bush era policies, Wood is at his best when he presents a situation, crafts a response, and finally leads both Harrison and the fictional version of the United States through the case study. The bulk of the novel rests in the story, yet these political debates resurface when they hasty 2020 election occurs. That said, holding with Wood’s style, the chapters start with a smattering of politically centered statements, each drawn from Harrison’s political campaigns. At times these segments did well to further characterize Samantha Harrison, but at others they served to distract and delay the true narrative.

While Presidential Intentions darts throughout Harrison’s history, Presidential Declarations follows a linear path through pre, during, and post crisis America. This choice allows one to settle in and enjoy the narrative without working to determine when and where it is coming from. That said, the writer in me cringes from time-to-time as Amanda remains a relatively flat and underdeveloped character and Watts, who is fully flushed out in book one, is reduced to largely a stage prop in this incarnation. In the end, the novel stands as a satisfying sequel to a promising debut.

Douglas J. Wood’s Presidential Intentions: A Book Review

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Douglas J. Wood’s press team recently contacted me about reviewing his Samantha Harrison trilogy, so here we are. Published in 2014, the first novel, Presidential Intentions, follows the life of a fictional, moderate Republican presidential candidate Samantha Harrison and her run for office in 2016. The text creates a candidate that, at least at the time of composition, fills the post Obama niche as a member of the political right that can unify America’s moderate force and a natural lurch to the conservatism after Obama’s move to the left. While the political scene went a drastically different direction, the novel still holds merit.

At times the text dazzles, creating a unique character with an interesting vision of the world. Harrison is a strong, principled woman, a maverick in the true sense, and Wood crafts her with precision. The plot plays into the political machine, dabbling in the power brokers that create both low and high level political candidates, it dances around the election process, and exposes the deep seeds of political patriarchy. But the text focuses mostly on the candidate’s past, eschewing the majority of her political campaign for President of the United States outside of speech excerpts that start each chapter. Written with short chapters that dart across Harrison’s history, Wood struggles to paint a coherent vision for his novel. Was this book about a political insider and her rise or her marriage or her relationships with criminals she persecuted or running for president?

For a section of the book we enter covert terrorist operations, glaze over torture, and then discuss the moral merits of abortion. While some of the topics can be heavy handed, Wood does an admirable job of creating an interesting woman and keeping the reader plunging through the text in an effort to discover what will happen next. In doing so, he writes more of a prologue to a deeper story, one the next two novels aim to tell. If you are looking for a steady read and a dip into the world of politics, give the text a look.