THE DAYS TO COME

Political consultants Peter Rena and Randi Brooks return for another thriller-cum–civics lesson following Oppo (2019).

Having helped Wendy Upton clear her reputation and become vice president of the United States, Rena and Brooks find themselves in President-elect David Traynor's inner circle. Traynor is a Silicon Valley technocrat with big plans for the country, and in laying them out he functions as an advocate for Rosenstiel's own prescription for an American administration. This prescription is astute, but unfortunately it's laid out so comprehensively that it detracts from any element of thrill in the plot. In Rosenstiel's analysis, the key to saving the climate lies in energy storage—a better battery will make possible a large-scale shift to renewable energy sources. Traynor creates a secret battery-development initiative using private tech startups funded from national security sources; the effort is speculative at best, but the rewards seem to justify the political risk. Then Traynor dies, and Upton takes the helm. She's concerned that news of the initiative will leak and expose her administration to legal and political hazards, and she engages Rena and Brooks to assess how practical and how secure the program is; foreign individuals have also invested in the startups and may be acting as agents of competing powers. Rena, meanwhile, is suffering an identity crisis brought on by the breakup of his longtime relationship, and, in a somewhat superfluous subplot, Steph Myers, a wannabe conspiracy theorist, stalks him. None of these plot elements is compelling or substantial enough to carry the narrative.

Plenty of astute analysis and innovative proposals but not enough narrative energy.