Many perspectives in aThriller to portray Political Culture

tommy gun

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Hey guys,

I just put down a great thriller by Vince Flynn, Memorial Day. It was an edgy US special forces and intelligence vs. Al Quada terrorist attacks that included the political struggle in Washington to accept what is necessary to fight the War on Terror.

He was a big fan of 3-5 page chapters, but wrote longer action filled 15-20 page chapters to narrate the main action. Every chapter was written in third person perspective, but the perspective frequently rotated among about ten characters. Some single chapters were even written from the perspective of the 10 minutes before a character dies. I thought this was an exciting way to develop the events - from the opposing perspectives in conflict.

Another thing I noticed was that the many characters were interesting in themselves, but they were not all directly related to the MC's efforts to stop the terrorists' attacks, only part of the political atmosphere. There were generic characters who adopted positions that he sought to refute through his story. And while reading this book, it would have been very hard to side with the political analysts, fervently concerned with maintaining a politically correct appearance in the media, that recommends to the president to uphold the rights of the suspected terrorist. With a nuclear attack at stake, theres no better time for the cliche, "you gotta do what you gotta do."
 

Kate Thornton

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I guess political thrillers are not really my thing - except old Cold War ones. And I am adamantly against the corruption of our Constitution for anything. Yes, even suspected terrorists should have rights because that is the whole point of defending our way of life. So a thriller like this might just make me mad and find itself on the way to the give-away pile.