Not a novel. No characterisation, just a story reasonably well told. But the crux is that Harris doesn’t appear to be trying to make me think, or to tell me anything. He is simply putting into narrative form a story whose outlines I know, which is interesting only inasmuch as hearing a lazy cover version of a familiar song is interesting. But this writer, who made his name with books about Blair, Brown & Co., himself fails to make even the most obvious comparisons between New Labour and late Republican politics; what is more, when I pause of my own accord to consider these relationships I feel that I am not following my author’s intentions for me; that I should stop thinking and get back on the rails. Well, I got off around page 70.