State of Terror

By Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton, Simon & Schuster/St. Martin’s Press, 2021, 512 pages
Reviewed by Sue Fountain, December 7, 2021

“State of Terror” is an international thriller; a real page-turner.

The protagonist is Ellen Adams, Secretary of State, and part Wonder Woman. (Surprised?) When bombs go off in Europe, killing many people, she realizes it is just a warning to the U.S.

She and her best friend, Betsy, take off for Europe to find out what’s going on. Throughout the story they zip back and forth from Washington, D.C., to Tehran, to Moscow – always gaining an audience with the highest-ranking person in each place. Ellen figures out there are bombs placed in three cities in the U.S.; she has to figure out where those bombs are, and who put them there.

Unlikely as all of this is, I couldn’t put the book down. It was probably due to Louise Penny’s writing ability that the story captivated me. I have read several of her Inspector Gamache novels and enjoy them. Gamache even shows up briefly in this novel.

State of Terror” is a terrifying book showing us that there are mad men out there who have lots of money and control more than we can imagine.

The comic relief in the book comes when the former president of the U.S. is described as a greedy, idiotic man. Our Secretary of State, Ellen, doesn’t mind taking him on and threatening him. Maybe that’s the whole reason Hillary helped with the story!