The Machiavelli Covenant

Allan Folsom’s The Machiavelli Covenant is the story of people walking around Europe in search of a nebulous conspiracy. Kind of like his first novel, The Day After Tomorrow, where people walked around Europe in search of a nebulous conspiracy that involved Adolf Hitler’s preserved head. Here it involves the kind of thing that Jon Land would make and make amazing through ridiculous set pieces. Except here, there aren’t any and the whole thing has a poker face that would have given it millions of earnings in the WSOP.

Well, the set pieces technically are ridiculous, but not in a “wow a monster truck chase” kind of way. More like “ok, it’s the twentieth chapter of people getting in and out of cars.” It’s ridiculous in a not-so-fun way, not a fun way.

I truly believe this book could be a quarter of the length it actually was and still work. I hope it was due to some length obligation by the publisher, but given Folsom’s other work, I really doubt it.

Day of Confession

Alan Folsom’s second thriller novel was 1998’s Day of Confession. Following the “big” so-bad-its-good shoes of predecessor The Day After Tomorrow, it stumbles. Badly. That involved a bizarre plot centered around giving Adolph Hitler a head transplant. This, like a 1990s technothriller out of Central Casting, involves Catholic Church higher-ups launching a conspiracy to take control of China.

(Look, this is what you get when you don’t have a definite opponent. You can get Cauldron or you can get stuff like this.)

Anyway, this more mundane premise dooms the book. It has all of its predecessor’s weaknesses, like so much of the book just being people going places. But by having a more boring thriller plot, it lacks the crazed strengths that made Day After Tomorrow such a good bad book. The writing isn’t the worst ever, but there are better thrillers out there.