The Lafayette Campaign by Andrew Updegrove

I do like a good conspiracy thriller now and then, and this one has a good dose of humour and satire to make it an entertaining read. I gave this 5 stars.

The Lafayette Campaign by Andrew Updegrove on Amazon.com

This is a tense political thriller with a healthy dose of satire, also a very entertaining read. Frank Adversego is a computer expert that is called upon by an un-named US government agency when they have a suspicion that someone has hacked the electronic voting system. Some unexpected results in the republican preliminaries have set alarm bells ringing in Washington. Frank sets to work figuring out how the hackers got in, but gets distracted by a young French student that keeps crossing his path. He soon finds out that he can trust no one and that he is alone in stopping the presidential election from being rigged. The Lafayette campaign is full of surprising plot twists and turns, but at all times disturbingly believable. This is a clever piece of storytelling that combines politics, technology and human emotion.

Frank Adversego is an interesting character with a fascinating job. He is also very human. We get to see his more vulnerable side; he is middle aged, lonely and wants to get in better shape physically. Frank is not one of these uber geeky smart tech wiz- kids that annoyingly spot straight away how a cyber-hack was done. Frank like most of us stumbles about in the dark for a while and is at times too trusting. But he is also diligent and committed and with hard work he solves the case.

I read this book during the 2016 primaries and caucuses which fitted perfectly with the story; I even started wondering if Mr Updegrove was clairvoyant so closely matched his story with all the shenanigans in the republican primaries and the unexpected rise of DT. This is book 2 in the series and I haven’t read book 1 (not yet but hope to soon), but it stands on its own and can be read out of order. Frank Adversego is certainly a character I want to revisit.