The Committee

Rating:
Summary: my opinion
Review: An original thriller is very hard to come by these days as many of the > authors from the 80s and 90s appear to have run out of fresh ideas. So, a > new name is very welcome and one who can take the day's headlines and make > the facts blend with the fiction in new and exciting ways is even more > welcome. Mike Nugent has taken the reality of Clancy, the story telling of > Grisham and brought them both into the 21st century with this readable and > completely believable tale of low dealing in high places in Washington. This > is an exciting, gritty and all too plausible look at the real power behind > today's headlines. >

Rating:
Summary: Washington Politics + U.S. History = Great Thriller
Review: I couldn't put this book down! Here is a story that successfully weaves modern day politics with documented history. The end result is a well written, fast paced, plausible story that will have you intrigued from beginning to end. Anyone who enjoys a good thriller, who is interested in national politics, along with all of you U.S. history buffs, should read this book. It would also make a great movie!

Rating:
Summary: A must read...
Review: I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up The Committee...but after 30 pages, I couldn't put it down...not only is it one of the best thrillers I've read in years, but it's also a fantastic U.S. history lesson weaving together pre-Revolutionary War figures with Civil War and Civil Rights movement conspiracies...not since James Ellroy's American Tabloid has a novel delved so deeply into the underbelly of U.S. history, leaving one wondering where fiction ends and reality begins, and in the process allowing us to re-think the "true" motivations behind the founding of our country...this is a fabulous novel, history lesson, political tract, and all around thriller.

Rating:
Summary: Rushing back and forth in time
Review: In THE COMMITTEE, P.M. Nugent uses primary sources about assassinations to weave a thriller of what might be and what might have been. It's both fascinating and horrific---especially when you read the sources at the back. Prepare yourself for blood and drama: the first death occurs in the first chapter. If you liked A CIVIL ACTION, you will tear through THE COMMITTEE.

Rating:
Summary: Rushing back and forth in time
Review: In THE COMMITTEE, P.M. Nugent uses primary sources about assassinations to weave a thriller of what might be and what might have been. It's both fascinating and horrific---especially when you read the sources at the back. Prepare yourself for blood and drama: the first death occurs in the first chapter. If you liked A CIVIL ACTION, you will tear through THE COMMITTEE.

Rating:
Summary: If Fiction is Your Bag . . .
Review: Well, there's a willing suspension of disbelief and then there's a Willing Suspension of Disbelief. You'll need a whopping dollop of the latter to make it through this thing -- all 76 "chapterettes," the Epilogue and Author's Notes. (I won't even mention the author's "pitch" for his next novel, The Witness, starring -- Ta Daa! -- the hero from The Committee; pp 387 - 412.)

Now listen, I'm a certified Grassy Knoll nut, too, but this book is a piece of work. The premise is terrific, the first three or four chapterettes fascinating and then -- doink! -- reality sets in and you're certain your leg is being pulled. Gradually the book becomes more and more unbelieveable and then the work disintegrates into the "And then . . . And then . . . " school of fiction.

Most characters, aside from our hard-boiled, scotch drinking, cigarette puffing hero, are merely stick-figures lumped into the plot in anticipation of the movie rights. The chapterettes jump from pillar to post as Nugent tries to keep all the conspiracy balls in the air at the same time and move the action along.

There's enough heart-thumping and chest-heaving and bullet-splattered debris flying around these pages to last a lifetime. Maybe the hero needs a check-up with his cardiologist. The way his heart keeps pounding when the chips are down (and that's a lot of times), maybe he should lay off the fags.

We start with the execution of a key witness testifying before a Senate committee looking into the assassination of Martin Luther King. Before long we're caught up in a search for the missing 18 pages of the diary of John Wilkes Booth, looking for clues to a chain of political assassinations through the years in the USA. Cool stuff, eh? That's what I thought, too. But it's downhill from there.

I will say the best read in the book comes at the Author's Notes. More grist for the mill.

Finally, native Washingtonians will find the book a howler. All this blood, all this gore, all these political shennanigans, and no CNN? No Washington press corps? No Tim Russert? No Wolf Blitzer? No police chief Ramsey? Minimal intrusion from The Washington Post??? C'mon! Where's Dan Rather when you need him?

Rating:
Summary: If Fiction is Your Bag . . .
Review: Well, there's a willing suspension of disbelief and then there's a Willing Suspension of Disbelief. You'll need a whopping dollop of the latter to make it through this thing -- all 76 "chapterettes," the Epilogue and Author's Notes. (I won't even mention the author's "pitch" for his next novel, The Witness, starring -- Ta Daa! -- the hero from The Committee; pp 387 - 412.)

Now listen, I'm a certified Grassy Knoll nut, too, but this book is a piece of work. The premise is terrific, the first three or four chapterettes fascinating and then -- doink! -- reality sets in and you're certain your leg is being pulled. Gradually the book becomes more and more unbelieveable and then the work disintegrates into the "And then . . . And then . . . " school of fiction.

Most characters, aside from our hard-boiled, scotch drinking, cigarette puffing hero, are merely stick-figures lumped into the plot in anticipation of the movie rights. The chapterettes jump from pillar to post as Nugent tries to keep all the conspiracy balls in the air at the same time and move the action along.

There's enough heart-thumping and chest-heaving and bullet-splattered debris flying around these pages to last a lifetime. Maybe the hero needs a check-up with his cardiologist. The way his heart keeps pounding when the chips are down (and that's a lot of times), maybe he should lay off the fags.

We start with the execution of a key witness testifying before a Senate committee looking into the assassination of Martin Luther King. Before long we're caught up in a search for the missing 18 pages of the diary of John Wilkes Booth, looking for clues to a chain of political assassinations through the years in the USA. Cool stuff, eh? That's what I thought, too. But it's downhill from there.

I will say the best read in the book comes at the Author's Notes. More grist for the mill.

Finally, native Washingtonians will find the book a howler. All this blood, all this gore, all these political shennanigans, and no CNN? No Washington press corps? No Tim Russert? No Wolf Blitzer? No police chief Ramsey? Minimal intrusion from The Washington Post??? C'mon! Where's Dan Rather when you need him?