*** Warning: This review contains spoilers!! ***
Even though I recently read Stacey Abrams's While Justice Sleeps, I still don't consider political thrillers a genre I generally read. Again, being interested in real-life politics, I picked up this book because of my fondness for the author, Hillary Clinton.
State of Terror was a comfortable, fast-paced read. The story crossed many international borders and had a vast cast of characters, but I had no trouble following the plot, which is noteworthy because I am easily confused. I liked the easy-to-follow, natural flow of the book; the narrative jumped from location to location, but followed a chronological timeline. In fact, with events unfolding so quickly, it felt like it could be the plot for a season of the TV show 24!
I enjoyed the light-hearted humor sprinkled throughout, and appreciated the thinly veiled portrayals of Trump and Putin.
I know this is a personal preference, but I was not fond of the writing style that employed clauses instead of full sentences. I know the structure adds emphasis to each statement, but it just felt choppy to me. For example: "She stared, paralyzed. Wishing Amir were there. Not to tell her what to do, but to slip his hand in hers. So she wouldn't be alone." (p. 38-39) I don't know if that kind of writing is characteristic of Louise Penny, since I haven't read any of her other books.
Since Hillary Clinton was actually Secretary of State, I took for granted that everything in the book was within the realm of possibility, no matter how incredible. Occasionally, it was smaller plot devices that felt unbelievable. For example, it seemed very unlikely that Anahita, a trained employee in the State Department, would not know that Gil, the famous journalist who was kidnapped by terrorists, was the Secretary of State's son. Also, Katherine and Charles taking the trip to visit far-away caves felt contrived.
One word of advice: Don't read the acknowledgements until after you finish the book. More than once, I have missed out on useful glossaries or "Notes on the Text" type appendices because I didn't know they were there until it was too late. Now, I make a habit of flipping to the back of books first, to see what's there. In this case, both authors provided heartwarming insights into their friendship and the inspiration for some of the characters, but there's also at least one piece of information that made me predict something that I might not have guessed if I hadn't already read the acknowledgements!
Finally, I think I found an editing error. On page 422, a conversation reveals that the date is "the tenth of March... Today." But just a few pages earlier, on page 411, the chapter's opening line said, "It was ten past nine on a late Fabruary [sic] morning..." Beyond the misspelling, the conflicting dates must have been a mistake.
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