Out of Crisis

Very good mix of thriller, natural disasters, politics, and constitutional law. Two stories, two years apart are told and they merge in a most satisfactory way. As the Secretary of State is convinced to run for President as a third-party candidate, his primary goal is to represent the forgotten eighty percent through a new constitutional convention. Only a national emergency could cause this to happen, and one just happens to happen.

I did not not know I really need to think and so glad I did! The timeline and events throughout were well paced and kept me reading longer, I had to know how this ended. This is a work of fiction, but the scariest thing is that the whole book is plausible and believable; makes me shudder. Very impressed with this from start to finish and the ending, O M G!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!! Dystopian? Yes. Thriller/suspense? Heck yes! You have to read this!

Looking forward to more by this author in the future.

Thanks to Netgalley, Richard Caldwell, and Indigo River Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 4/13/21

I've been trying to find a political thriller for awhile now. 
And this was great. I loved everything about this book! The setting the characters. The plot the ending. The writing.
This was a wonderful read.

Out of Crisis is a fast paced, well written geo-political/geological thriller, that appealed very much. Though at times it touched on constitutional and scientific matters, it never lost the reader, and kept me intrigued. I enjoyed the "subtle" references to the unnamed past administration, and it highlighted how bizarre that was. I'm not sure who the Starkey character is portraying, if anyone, but I was left feeling he was the type of individual that the world needed right now and in the future. Out of Crisis comes....

Against the backdrop of a natural catastrophe and gun violence, Richard Caldwell posits a new political direction for the United States – the Centrist Party.  Out of Crisis is an interesting read - the author’s view of what is wrong with today’s American politics.  However, after last year’s election hype and hypocrisy, I found the political discourse more than a bit boring.  Of greater interest to me was the the excellent descriptive writing about the natural catastrophe and its human toll.  For that alone, this book is a must read. #OutofCrisis #NetGalley

One of the better political thrillers that I have read in quite some time. A melding of two time lines, one in which a third party candidate is elected President, the other a major eruption of the Yellowstone caldera. The novel kept me interested in where it was going to go. The story, for the most part, is somewhat plausible. Especially the volcano portion. A little heavy on the political preaching for me, but some may enjoy that part. Entertaining.

f it ain’t one thing, it’s another.

First crisis: Russia, China, US, and NKorea are at odds . .  . again. A decidedly apolitical problem solver, the current Secretary of State, brokers a solution that not only cools the crisis, but also effectively eliminates NKorea as a rogue state.

Second crisis: The political chasms as they are will never unite the country. Red vs. Blue is a no-win situation. Behind the scenes money and power brokers realize the only way out is a 3rd party. And not one that is further right or left of what’s there now. A 3rd party must be middle of the road: fiscally conservative and socially liberal, which describes 80% of the country. Win the 80% and screw the two fringes. Envision 2100, the brokers, have not only a plan, but a platform. What they need is a candidate

Third crisis: A hugely popular president tells his closest allies in DC that his health will probably keep him from seeking a second term. And the current VP is a toad, entirely unsuited for the office. Solution: A new candidate from a new party: David Stakely, current Secretary of State for the Centrist Party.

Fourth crisis: A group of highly effective kidnappers has been snatching well-heeled Americans for ransom. Based in the Yucatan. Everyone thinks its roots are in the cartel.

Fifth crisis: This pastor from Houston has heard the Word of God. He’s been told by God that the planet needs a cleansing and that the Pastor is to start this cleansing by stocking his pulpit with weapons and to open up on the congregation during his sermon.

Sixth crisis: and it’s a big one. You’ve heard that Yellowstone National Park sits atop a mega volcano that has been dormant for untold thousands of years, right? Well, guess what. Nap time is over. The greatest natural disaster in recorded history.

That’s a lot for one book. Remember that excellent movie Dunkirk? Where Christopher Nolan expertly knitted four stories, each with different timelines, into a cohesive story where the four separate stories came together in a hugely satisfying finish.

This is sort of like Dunkirk. Probably 80-90% of the book follows two stories. The Yellowstone volcano eruption (#6 above) and the birth of a 3rd party (#2 and 3 above) are told in alternating chapters (mostly) but set 2-3 years apart. The other issues come to play periodically at varying points within the 2–3-year bracketing of stories.

The Yellowstone eruption is a breathtaking description of hell on earth and is told at a breakneck pace. The development of the Centrist Party and the recruitment of Secretary Stakely is, however, mostly meeting after meeting that is, for all intents and purposes, a primer on how to develop a third party. Not to mention a party platform that reforms everything from fiscal restraint, immigration, term limits, guns, paths to citizenship, repeal/revision of a few amendments, a new Constitutional Convention called by the states, and much more. While interesting, I thought it slowed everything else down and read more like a public policy professor's lecture notes.

And all those meetings go on for a few years. Stakely and the Envision 2100 brass realize that some unfathomable events need to happen at just the right time for all these new initiatives to be welcomed by the 80%. A high-profile kidnapping is thwarted, the Pastor opens fire. And the eruption. Shit happens.

So, yeah, the populace is ready for a massive shift in US policies.