Bill Clinton writes a spy novel

Many US presidents have hidden talents. Since leaving office, George W. Bush has become something of a weekend oil painter. Richard Nixon was an avid bowler in his time. Barack Obama has taken up water skiing. And Bill Clinton continues to show off his way with words. So, after penning a bestselling memoir (My Life), the former US president sits down to spin a breathless spy novel. The President Is Missing takes us into the embattled White House of President Jonathan Lincoln Duncan, a former Gulf War veteran of the Democratic persuasion who is being lambasted by Congress for his seeming deals with a known terrorist, actions he insists were for “the good of the country.” An impeachment trial looms.

Is this an upside-down version of the current White House? Is the title a snide comment on Trump’s perceived moral vacuity? Not necessarily. Nor is it a commentary on the Clinton presidency, and his own impeachment woes. But, with the bestseller-writing machine that is James Patterson sitting by his side, Clinton has an opportunity to offer us an insider’s view of Washington DC, a place that has been called a “swamp” more than once, but here mostly concerns itself with the preservation of crocodiles and political sharks.

Politics is everything in Washington, and President Duncan knows the game better than anybody else. Clinton himself knew a thing or two about political survival, and The President is Missing operates as a user’s guide of sorts, but mixed with spies and terrorists and stuff. It takes a while to set up, but by page 138, we find President Duncan, disguised in a red beard and baseball cap, sitting in a DC ballpark to watch a Washington Nationals game, a shady terrorist suspect by his side, promising crucial information. 

Things go awry, and Duncan must try to track down the meaning of the code words “Dark Ages” and uncover the Armageddon-laced conspiracy behind it. Before. It’s. Too. Late.

Kudos to Clinton for weaving a lot of real-life presidential detail into the familiar Patterson techno-thriller template. It may seem a little Da Vinci Code at times — what with the cabals and code words — but that’s the thing that keeps pages turning these days.

Bill Clinton continues to show his way with words in The President is Missing.

The fun here is that Clinton does know quite a lot about how Washington works, and the actual logistics of a US president’s day to day; he can map out every nook and cranny in the White House. Indeed, President Bill might be the most high-level fact checker in bestseller history.

So did Clinton actually write the thing? Or did he simply map out a 20-page summary and turn it over to the seasoned pro to crank out another bestseller? Hard to say. Some things have the ring of Clintonian reality — when President Duncan needs to go undercover, he mingles with regular Americans in DC bars and public parks. He overhears their conversations and studies their faces. He feels their pain. That was Clinton’s strong suit: he could reportedly talk to anybody; make them feel he was listening to every word.

There’s a line that reminds us of Bill’s hound dog days (“When the door opens, eight women walk in, all wearing teased-up hair and skintight dresses, all with bodies of centerfolds, all paid princely sums to show this team the night of their lives.”) There are broadsides against social media and its divisive effects on politics, and there’s a too-on-the-nose speech to Congress at the end that warns against hacked elections. (Spoiler! It was Russia!) And there’s also a little jab at Trump — though Clinton would probably deny it — when Duncan muses over whether to meet with the shady terrorist or not (“This whole thing could be a ruse to get me alone and vulnerable… And I will have tainted the office of president by allowing myself to be suckered into a secret meeting by a simplistic ploy.”) Shades of the private Trump meeting with Putin, perhaps? Or the Trump Tower meeting set up by Don Jr.? Truth is often stranger than fiction.

At other times, the whole novel feels so slickly produced — short, jumpy chapters meant to keep those pages turning — that you can probably overlay it atop any of Patterson’s biggest books, and you couldn’t tell the difference.

Of course, Clinton is not the first politician in Washington to pen thrillers. Longtime Clinton foe and House Republican Newt Gingrich, for instance, occasionally writes venomous DC fiction with titles like Treason. (You can imagine what kind of political figures populate his novels. They probably wear pantsuits and go by the name “Millary.”)

In Clinton’s fictional world, things get shuffled. President Duncan here has one grown-up daughter, like Clinton, but his wife is, sadly, lost to cancer. He reveres her memory. And this fictional president is a combat vet, not someone who skipped the draft. But he’s clearly liberal, and interestingly, Clinton manages to sneak enough of himself into The President is Missing so that you do hear this popular US president’s voice coming through. It may be self-serving at times (take for example the line “Politics can be cruel in the way that it treats the wounded”), but it does show us what enormous pressures actually rest on the person occupying the Oval Office. You might even come away from it feeling a little sympathy for Trump and the difficulty of his job.

Nah, just kidding.