The 45th

This ambitious novel from Edgar finalist Buffa (Necessity) fails to live up to its tantalizing premise: what if Donald Trump wasn’t nominated for president in 2016. Instead, a dark horse candidate prevails at the Republican convention: Julian Drake, an intellectual who wants to set the U.S. on a path of reform designed, in part, to limit the power of the rich and fix the country’s most ingrained problems. Drake, a former California congressman who left office 12 years earlier to be a full-time parent, stuns the press and public from the start. He refuses to campaign or raise money, preferring to give a no-holds-barred press conference every week. The fresh approach appeals to voters. Once elected, Drake doesn’t name a cabinet or immerse himself in the business of running government. Rather, he and a loyal strategist hole up in the White House for more than a month before presenting their vision for America. The plot eventually peters out a bit ambiguously and without spark. Characters speak in paragraphs, and sometimes in entire pages, citing Aristotle, Nietzsche, and other great thinkers. Billed as a political thriller, this misfire offers no thrills. (May)