DISTORTED PERCEPTION

In Snowling’s debut novel, an American campaign manager gets a crash course in Central American politics.

After serving in the military, Rex Nash spent eight years working on campaigns, trying to change government for the better. (When someone asks him how he could do such work even though he hates politicians, he quips, “But I love to help get them out of office.”) When the grind became too much, he threw in the towel and took a quiet job with an insurance lobbying firm. However, when he gets the opportunity to reconnect with old flame Jessica Roark, Rex moves to North Carolina to be closer to her and goes back to campaign work. He’s right in the middle of successfully executing a long-shot campaign for a local congressional candidate when Jessica abruptly ends their rekindled relationship via text message. The heartbroken Rex distracts himself with a job managing the campaign of Raul Vasquez, a reformist candidate running for president of Panama. Unbeknownst to Rex, the campaign has already drawn the attention of a number of unsavory figures, including ruthless hit men and shady billionaires. The sitting president stacks the courts to hold onto power, and then a bomb goes off in Vasquez’s apartment—with Rex present. Rex and Vasquez survive the blast, but Rex becomes a prime suspect in the crime, as many in Panama already think he’s CIA—and the real CIA seems content to let him take the fall. A manhunt ensues, and Rex’s problems follow him back to America. Will he be able to stay alive, clear his name, get Vasquez elected, and win back the woman of his dreams?

Over the course of this political thriller, Snowling offers readers prose that’s muscular and engaging, particularly during the action sequences, as in the aftermath of the aforementioned bombing: “He stumbled out of the library and into what was left of the living room. The windows had been blown out, and the hardwood was charred. Bodyguards rushed past him and into the library to collect Vasquez, hurt but alive. Rex tried to see what was wrong with the candidate, but he had to grip his own head to stop the ringing.” Some readers will find that much of the novel, which hopscotches between the third-person perspectives of Rex and a number of Panamanian politicians and criminals, is reminiscent of the Netflix thriller series Narcos, which even gets name-checked by Rex himself. The plot takes a while to get going, and the mechanisms that Snowling uses to get Rex to various places sometimes feel clumsy or needlessly complicated. (The plotline involving Jessica, for example, will particularly strain readers’ credulity.) Even so, the overall story is consistently entertaining and intricate, and Snowling’s real-life background as a political consultant in Panama adds some color to the proceedings. For the most part, Snowling shows good writerly instincts, and his future offerings—perhaps continuing Rex’s adventures—will likely be worth a look.

A promising and confident political thriller that takes big swings and lands some punches.