The President is a Sick Man

Author: Matthew Algeo

Genre: History / Biography

Publisher: Chicago Review Press Incorporated, 2012

Pages: 272

Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: On July 1, 1893, President Grover Cleveland vanished. He boarded a friend’s yacht, sailed into the calm blue waters of Long Island Sound, and—poof!—disappeared. He would not be heard from again for five days. What happened during those five days, and in the days and weeks that followed, was so incredible that, even when the truth was finally revealed, many Americans simply would not believe it.

The President Is a Sick Man details an extraordinary but almost unknown chapter in American history: Grover Cleveland’s secret cancer surgery and the brazen political cover-up by a politician whose most memorable quote was “Tell the truth.” When an enterprising reporter named E. J. Edwards exposed the secret operation, Cleveland denied it. The public believed the “Honest President,” and Edwards was dismissed as “a disgrace to journalism.” The facts concerning the disappearance of Grover Cleveland that summer were so well concealed that even more than a century later a full and fair account has never been published. Until now.

Review: I'll be honest, I primarily chose this book for the title. Throughout history many people have thought the President, whichever President it was, is a sick man. 

In all seriousness though, this novel is really really good. The author's writing style reminded me of Erik Larsen. Somehow these authors were able to take a minor, and in some cases, forgotten piece of history and turn it into a readable novel.

Perhaps at times Algeo got a little side tracked and went off on a tangent, but he managed to make the tangent interesting too and did tie it back into the main topic.

This was a far more enjoyable read than I had anticipated.

Into the Water

Author: Paula Hawkins
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Publisher: Penguin Publishing, 2017
Pages: 400
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. 

Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its history, dredging up secrets long submerged.

Left behind is a lonely fifteen-year-old girl. Parentless and friendless, she now finds herself in the care of her mother's sister, a fearful stranger who has been dragged back to the place she deliberately ran from—a place to which she vowed she'd never return.

With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins delivers an urgent, twisting, deeply satisfying read that hinges on the deceptiveness of emotion and memory, as well as the devastating ways that the past can reach a long arm into the present.

Beware a calm surface—you never know what lies beneath.

Review: The print book has a hundred holds on it at the library, so I settled for the audio.

As seems to be the case more often than not with this genre, it started slow. And, it felt like the author was trying too hard with all the references to water. It didn't seem thrilling or psychologically disturbing. In fact, it seemed all too probable in today's messed up world.

I also guessed the ending, long before the ending arrived.Not a good thing.

Bottom line, I didn't love it.

Other Paula Hawkins books:
The Girl on the Train