Great thriller which kept me turning the pages well into the night. Great characters and plot. Highly recommend to others!!

Max Geller, a former CIA agent fired for bias against the president, is hired to investigate the President’s trip to Moscow and his ties to the Russian government. Another agent, Jill, is assigned to what with him. He runs into a lot of trouble, including assassins who want him dead for what he knows.

This is an exciting, fast paced book this never lets up. The story bears a striking familiarity to the real life Steele dossier. The contents of that dossier are controversial and will be discussed for years.
Of course, this is fiction but sometimes the book read like fact and fiction were the same. 4 stars.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

More twists and turns that keep the action happening. Expertly weaves current front page events into a fictional story, but the connection between fiction and real events is palpable. A very enjoyable read

despite having trouble imagining the credibility of this (having learned from twitter and the news to be suspicious) - perhaps it's more tenable in a fictional story!! this reads like a shot and it's entertaining in extreme - in fact because of just that 'fake news' theme, it's also timely and wise in its solutions - impressive!

A wonderful spy novel which keeps the reader guessing as to where it's going next.
Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC in return for review.

All the components of an interesting read but it didn't quite manage to entice me. I feel that a third-person point of view would have worked better for the flow.

It’s no wonder that Max Geller is pissed off and swilling mid priced scotch in the mid afternoon in a mid level DC bar.

He was a career field agent for the CIA. Russia was his specialty. Fluent. Familiar with Russian business and politics. Transferred back to the mother ship in Langley. He had an almost live-in girlfriend Vanessa. People wanted his counsel. Life was pretty good.

Then Vanessa gets posted to Australia. But soon comes Claudia. DC lawyer sort of on loan to the CIA. She and Max hit it off. But in an exchange of emails on the Company server, Max says some derogatory things about President Walldrum. Max should know that no conversation on a CIA email server is private or protected. Max’s boss learns about the email and summarily fires Max. Goodbye CIA. Hello afternoon scotch.Yeah, Max is pissed off. And everyone around him has to endure his attitude.

Into the bar saunters Bowen. A fixer of sorts. People want things done, he finds the right talent to do the job. A client wants the file on the President. The file, dossier if you prefer, was prepared by an outgoing MI6 agent. When a new President is coming in, most countries prepare their own dossier for info on how to deal with a new administration. The Brit’s file is pretty salacious. Lots of Russia connections. Like, photos and hooker diaries of a younger version of the president way back when in a hotel while doing business in Russia. Statements from the Russian underground saying that Walldrum was told by Kremlin reps those pics will stay hidden if Walldrum permits the Russians to launder money through his hotel construction business. Bowen’s client doesn’t just want the file. He wants its contents verified at the source. And the client is willing to pay handsomely - $10 million.

Geller will have to go to London to track down the file (to which Bowen inserts Jill Rucker to work with Geller, who ain’t happy about a partner or minder or babysitter – you choose), then Russia to talk to the sources, then Panama to see how construction laundering works, to DC to set up an exchange of information for cash, to Geneva for the actual exchange. Having once had a career in Europe, Max has friends at most every stop. Along the way, he gets the help he needs and maybe a bad guy or three meet their maker. As the story develops, poor Max becomes a target of the CIA, MI6 and the Kremlin.

The question here isn’t so much whether Max find the dossier. He will. We all know that. The real question is who profits by having possession of the dossier. And that’s the slippery slope we have to navigate. And I’ll have to say, when all is revealed, I didn’t see it coming. The last 25+ pages of the book is almost as surprising as the last 2 minutes of The Usual Suspects.

Scott's other titles are historical thrillers and he has lived all over the world. Also a vet of the 101st Airborne, was on the Army Staff, and is a graduate of the General Staff College and the National Defense University. Write about what you know? I think this guy knows it. An early 2020 release, this book was honored at the best thriller/adventure book of 2020 by AmericaBookFest.com. Fast paced, loaded with twists, double and triple crosses and other similar pastimes. Once you’ve started reading, don’t’ pick it up to read a few pages before nodding off to sleep. Not gonna happen. Those few pages will easily turn into 2+ hours of lost sleep.

Wow. The President's Dossier is a really fast-paced book from beginning to end. My head is still spinning from all the information loaded into this story. Just know, that the story reflects very closely and similarly to our current president and all the speculations of his dealings with Russia and (possibly other countries)

To start with, unless you're extremely familiar with all the lingo and names of domestic and foreign political parties and inner circles, it might be a bit over the head reading this story. Of course if you're just reading this story for fun and for how intricately written the plots and details are, then don't worry about all the Russian names and all the political policies and offices in the US. That was the case for me. I have a general knowledge of how the system works in the US, but because the author has first hand knowledge dealing with the Pentagon, the story itself is quite compelling and believable to a certain degree.

The main character in this book is Max Geller, an ex-CIA agent that was hired to find out the truth behind the president's relationship with Russia before and during the presidential elections, and quite possibly currently. As I said earlier, this is very reflective of the allegations to the current president of the United States. The American public would like to know if the current US president did indeed "get into bed" with Russia and Putin and this book makes you really wonder just what happened during the election process.

The President's Dossier is definitely a high spy thriller story with tons and tons of details woven in to make you second guess even what you suspect could or could not be true. I recommend you just enjoy this thrilling ride of a story and not to think too much of it. Reading the book is kind of like going along the action with Max Geller. The writer delves with straight arrowed dialogue and plots and I felt like I was there on the run and investigating along with Max and his comrades.

The supporting characters were great as well, especially the interactions between Max's love interests and his trusted sidekick, Sherri, along with her own team of field experts.

I do love a good conspiracy theory book, and The President's Dossier did not disappoint! Now, all I need to know if what happens at the end of the book will actually come to light! :)
I received this book as an ARC.

I love a good action/thriller book and I am going to say that The President’s Dossier by James A. Scott is definitely one of those!

I have to admit, when I realized it was kind of a spy thriller type book, I wasn’t sure I would like it. But once I got started, I didn’t want to put it down. I felt very strongly that the main plot line was inspired by our current political climate and some of the allegations made against the real President of the United States. I found this to make the book that much better, because it felt based in real events, but with a fictional twist to make it even better.

I loved Max – he’s paranoid of anyone he doesn’t bring into the mix and with good reason. I loved the way he handled things, how he kept charge of everything no matter what was going on.

I wasn’t too fond of Jill – she annoyed me, and I knew there was something off about her, I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

But that ending… the twist was perfect, and I’d never have guessed what was going on. I never expected what was revealed about the “mission” Max was on, so it blew my mind. I would definitely read this again and I’d love to see if there will be any sequels.

Well, I was very excited about this book. It sounded interesting and started off capturing my attention. This interest may have been due to the uncanny similarities between fiction and fact. The book moved quickly and fluidity until about 60% of the way through. Then I just lost interest. The story’s plot got tangled and I did not care much for the main characters.

Max has been sacked from the CIA and his girlfriend has been posted to Australia, so life is not looking good. Out of the blue comes a job offer - to look into the truth of the story that the US president was compromised by the Russians - and the fee is 10 million dollars. So starts a buccaneering spy thriller packed with action which travels from the US to London, Moscow and Nicaragua. The tables are constantly turning and you won't put it down.

This international spy thriller is clearly very heavily based on the Steele Dossier (here renamed the Ironside Dossier) and honestly it’s one of those books where it very quickly becomes hard to tell fact from fiction. Some names are changed (Steele, Trump) and others aren’t (Putin). The basic premise goes; an undercover operative is hired to verify the contents of the dossier and promised a large payday of $10 million if he can do it.

The question I’d be asking at the beginning is; who wants it verified and what do they plan to do with the intel? But neither of those things seem to worry Max Geller, despite his literally being fired from the CIA after expressing anti-presidential sentiments. It seems obvious to me that those with the most to lose would be the ones most interested in making sure any verifying evidence was buried six feet under, and that’s exactly what quickly starts to happen, as a trail of bodies of witnesses begins to appear in Max’s wake.

Honestly, I’d have been out the minute my ‘contact number’ went silent and a random woman showed up as my minder instead. But Max inexplicably decides to carry on regardless. Luckily, he knows lots of competent people who are extremely good at what they do (I’d have loved to read more about Sherri and Tony D, actually) and manages with their help to not only do what he was contracted for, but turn around and figure out who is asking and why.

The disappointment here is that fiction mirrors real life and that the horrifying and incredibly compromising material in the dossier made absolutely no difference whatsoever. Which is… the administration in a nutshell, frankly. And difficult to come to terms with in a book of this genre. At the end of a spy thriller, you want to feel that the Good Guys won, that the world was saved. At the end of this one, I felt like Geller got to pocket some money and wander off into the sunset, and the corrupt just kept right on with their shady business. The losers were the innocent witnesses who were erased along the way.

This is quite well written; the author obviously has plenty of inside knowledge of the world of spycraft, and the shading of truth and fiction is so deftly done that you’d need to be a spy yourself to figure out where the lines were drawn. It’s just depressing, especially in the ending, and I found myself wishing there was an epilogue where something Geller had done actually made a difference, in the fictional world if not the real one. I’ll give it four stars.

Author James A. Scott is a former Army officer, paratrooper and combat veteran with experience in Pentagon Army intelligence operations. As such, he uses his background to write a story pulled directly from the headlines regarding the Steele dossier. This is a work of fiction based on fact, and that must be kept in mind while reading this novel. That said, Scott is clearly in touch with the world of spooks and the “tradecraft” required in the field. Scott seems to be familiar with the locales he mentions in Europe.

The story is about a career CIA agent, Max Geller, who is framed, then fired, for being biased against the current US president. He is then hired by a go-between to prove a dossier on the president is true. Max pulls together a crew and, from there, the story moves quickly from the US to Britain to Russia to Panama and back to the U S. He is able to move from country to country relatively easily, seeming magically avoiding hassles with customs everywhere he goes.

The characters in The President's Dossier are fully formed, but somehow lack the depth found in Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series. I enjoyed the book, though, and read it in one sitting.

I almost added my nonfiction-scams tag to this one in addition to tagging it as a thriller, as the book is clearly based on the Steele Dossier. If you are not from the US, or do not follow US politics, the Steele Dossier (in this book, renamed the Ironside Dossier) reported on Russian involvement during the 2016 elections in the US, favoring the Republican candidate.

In The President's Dossier, Max Geller, who previously worked for the CIA in its Moscow station, has been fired from the Agency after he offers anything less than praise for recently elected President Ted Walldrum (which anagrams to Mr Lewd Adult, something I found amusing and fitting, given the real life person he's modeled on), dumped by one girlfriend only to take up with another who works so much they barely see one another, and even with his credentials is unable to find a new job three weeks after his dismissal. He wonders if the Agency is waving people away from him. This "Duh!" moment is one I will have repeatedly for Max throughout the book, even though he is supposedly a superspy.

One day, a man named Bowen appears at the bar where Max spends his afternoons, carrying a briefcase of money. He offers $10 million (USD) to Max to verify the content of (and thereby sources for) the Ironside Dossier, so named because of the British MI6 intelligence officer who put it together. As someone obviously not a fan of Walldrum, Max has no issues signing a contract - with a Panamanian entity Bowen represents, which should have been another flag for Max - and taking the job.

Max also receives a call from Rodney, his old boss at the CIA, who knows Bowen has been to see him (another red flag) and dangles some reward in front of him. He also gives Max some gear, including an identity and a satphone.

I was suspicious, and Max should have been as well. Max makes some calls to have other people get all sorts of arrangements done - travel, gear, surveillance, etc. In fact, he doesn't seem to do much work himself of any sort that is not either walking into a place under a forged identity, sometime lifting documents or thumb drives from people, sleeping with Jill Rucker, who Bowen assigned to Max as a cutout (i.e., someone between Bowen and whoever he represents and Max), or getting kidnapped and subsequently rescued by other members of his team. There are also operational failures that are unforgivable - Max gets other people killed because he fails to think things through. As just one instance, he doesn't even seem to consider for a moment that perhaps Ironside is under surveillance by the Russians.

After being kidnapped, rescued, then rescued again in the same chapter, and now being hunted by MI6 in addition to the Russians, Max and crew head to St. Petersburg (Russia), to verify some items in the dossier - specifically, the loans and money laundering, and what I refer to as the "peeing with prostitutes" thing, all of which are in the real Steele Dossier. There is a nice setup with lookalikes that allow Max and Jill to leave the cruise ship they were on and not reboard it, giving them a head start on Russian intelligence.

After some time and activities in St Petersburg, the action moves to Moscow, where they contact a group known as Omega, who are working toward a future where Putin is removed from office and the oligarchs prosecuted for looting the country. In one of those more fantastical scenes, Max and Rucker impersonate FSB officers, enter a bank where one of the Omegas works, and retrieve thumb drives from a worker there. But Max, having not entirely thought it out, is seen by a security guard. That leads to a shootout and various deaths, and they're now on the run again, chased by Zaluda on behalf of the Russian intelligence service.

One thing that had me scratching my head was just how easily Max and Rucker managed to move from country to country. At no point were they ever questioned about their identities, held up at Customs, or anything else. They either simply traveled as themselves, without facial altering, under forged identities, or impersonated (in one rather unbelievable instance) a man and woman who looked very much like them, who just happened to be part of a flight crew of a Russian plane leaving for Paris.

Every now and again, Max asks himself some questions: about the timing of his firing, and why, about his current girlfriend, about Bowen/Panama, about his old boss offering him the same job, and so on. Never does he actually delve into any of it, even though this entire job could at any point result in his death or the deaths of members of his team. He is suspicious of Bowen, and (finally) of Rucker, sending her to Mexico City, away from the rest of the team.

Panama was next on the list, where they verified, somewhat loosely, the loan/money laundering items by breaking in to the 13th floor of "Walldrum Tower Panama" and seeing that the floor was incomplete and showed no signs of any work in progress - even though the entire floor of condos had been purchased by Russians. Max is, once again, caught while snooping around and is rescued by another member of the team. It's in this portion of the book that the manner in which money is laundered via loans and real estate investing/purchases is explained fairly well by one of the characters to Max, in layman's terms - so, also, to the reader, since Max should presumably know at least the basics. There's a showdown between Max and Rucker, from whom he forces the truth, after she shows up very angrily in Panama City.

The whole gang then moves back to the US, their job complete: mirroring real life once more, they've verified the Ironside Dossier. Bowen says Max has not completed it, because the sources are not named. Max refuses to name them, pointing out that Bowen only contracted him to verify the details. It occurred very late to Max that maybe, just maybe, Bowen was working for the Russians, trying to get Max to name names attached to the items in the dossier, which would have resulted in a (longer) hitlist for the Russians.

There's more shooting, a showdown with Rodney, and then, of course, the nonsensical bureaucratic issues that plagued the real Steele Dossier. I won't give away the actual ending, to avoid spoilers, but it sets things up nicely for Max and his crew if they should go on other adventures that are very noisy and leave a trail of bodies everywhere.

The writing is fine, and the book speeds right along between different milieus - in fact, there's very little downtime that we actually see, versus hear about. There's also an annoying motif where this sort of thing happens:

Character: (says something in code)
Spyspeak: (explains what Character just said)
Character: (says something in code)
Spyspeak: (explains what Character just said)

We get it, spies speak in code, but it would have flowed better had Max just explained it once he got off the phone with whoever it was.

The beginning and end of this shadow reality: there is a dossier, it was adjudged to be predominantly true, and the conclusion was reached that the Russians did interfere with the 2016 US presidential election. The middle part is one account of how the investigation of its content could have gone, and despite the items that bugged me about Max and how some of the story was conveyed, I'd say it isn't a bad way to spend a couple of hours.

3.5 out of five stars, rounded down to three for the issues mentioned.

Thanks to Oceanview Publishing and NetGalley for the review copy.

The President's Dossier
by James A. Scott
Oceanview Publishing
Mystery & Thrillers
Pub Date 07 Jul 2020 | Archive Date Not set

I am not familiar with this author but this book was a great read. I love mystery and thrillers but somewhere in the book, (possibly around chapter 20) all the plot twists just seemed excessive.
Thanks to Ocean View Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC.

3 star

Fired for bias against the U.S. president, ex-CIA Russia expert Max Geller gets a chance to redeem his reputation and make a fortune when he is hired to investigate the president’s incriminating ties to Moscow. Jill Rucker, an undercover CIA agent, is assigned to work with him—and she does—when she’s not pursuing her own conflicting goals.
This was a really interesting book and I am certainly hoping that Max Geller and his colleagues returns in subsequent adventures. The story line was certainly related to current circumstances related to the political situation in the USA.
Actually, some of the political intrigue and other nebulous undertakings by the various spy agencies were riveting. I’ve learned a lot more than I had previously had and the way things were presented were interesting and certainly plausible. I had always thought that Putin was the scariest leader on the planet and this does not change my view.
More importantly, the way things were explained read as very believable and the plot was very interesting as well. I really enjoyed the characters in this book. The dialogue was great. James Scott has certainly come up with a winner. If you like DeMille or Silva -- get this book. A solid 4.5 stars

This story was filled with well hashed out characters, and an intricate, well developed plot.
For the 1st 20 chapters I could not put the book down. Somewhere along the line the plot twists seemed unneccessary and excessive. UNTIL, suddenly the action picked up with the result of all the twists and the story sailed on to an explosive, interesting conclusion.

Thanks for the opportunity to review this novel.

Amazing spy thriller that got going from page one. James A Scott didn't waste any time with verbose background or unnecessary character development, he jumped straight into the story from the first chapter. I enjoyed getting to know Max Geller as the plot developed, he was a multi-dimensional, intelligent, super spy. I found myself constantly being surprised by the twists and turns of the story and genuinely enjoyed not figuring everything out until it actually unfolded. The parallels to current events and our own president were enjoyable and realistic. Scott did an amazing job of building a suspenseful, realistic, and thrilling spy story. Would definitely recommend to readers who enjoy spy thrillers and even to those with little experience reading them as it is just that good.

I dont seem to know how to post a picture of the cover of the book. In this case you are not missing much as its rather drab!

The story was not though.

Very fast paced and you have to be on your toes to see whether Max Geller is being pursued by M16 the CIA or the Russian Police or the Russian mafia, actually both.
The story moves very quickly between one location and the next and seems slightly fantastical to a layman but I suppose this is the way high treason/spying works!

Lots of betrayal, a President out for himself (money laundering in a huge manner) do you see the trend and a familiar figure peeking out! Very easy to relate to despite the quick work on the part of all parties involved.

Interesting read of this genre to have.

My first spy novel in a long time!

This book follows ex-CIA Agent Max Geller, who is trying to track down the President's Dossier. This Dossier holds details on the President's collusion with Russia and how he is in Putin's pocket (Sound familiar? Or maybe it's fake news).

I struggled to rate this book, I've given it 4 stars but probably sits better at 3.5 for me. I didn't really want to pick it up but it was exciting enough that I got it finished.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and OceanView Publishing for my copy!