Beres,
Michael. The President's Nemesis. Medallion Press: Platinum
Imprint. July 2006. c.382p. ISBN 1-932815-73-2. $24.95. Fiction.
Forced into early retirement
and then fired from his last menial job, Stanley Johnson is
at loose ends. His life has not been easy: a son, born in 1975
on the same day someone tried to assassinate President Ford,
was kidnapped on election day in 1980 and found in a shallow
grave on the day President Reagan was shot; Stan’s wife
later committed suicide. Most of the tragedies in his life
seem to be connected to political events, and now, with a presidential
election in the balance, Stan finds himself on the
edge. When he discovers a child’s head in the dumpster
outside his apartment, he comes apart. Surreal nightmares follow,
sleep walking episodes, a series of mind-bending events that
begin to propel him, puppetlike, toward the assassination
of a presidential candidate. But is that what the powers manipulating
him really want? Beres (Grand Traverse) goes one step beyond
The Manchurian Candidate in this engrossing thriller,
which sometimes seems too obvious but then foils expectations
by twisting the reader’s mind along with that of the
protagonist. Recommended for all popular fiction collections.