In need of a holiday read, I grabbed this from the library, intrigued that it was written in 2014, and was set in 2017, days before the Brexit referendum. In some ways it didn't disappoint. Marr writes well, describing places, people and conversations with an eye and ear for telling detail. The plot was beyond believable. The PM dies in office, days before the vote, and his inner circle strive to conceal the death. But Marr has his finger on the pulse, and in the end, I was persuaded that this fantastical plot was far too close to possible reality for comfort. All the same, politics isn't my world, and though I enjoyed his writing well enough, it wasn't my kind of tale. Two stars? No, make it three. Just. ( )

god i hate the word Brexit, why has that become our go-to word for this sorry mess? (why is it a subtitle on the goodreads title of this book?)

Fortunately this book, written a couple of years before the real referendum and set in a fictional 2017, doesn't use the word Brexit. It's written as a prediction of what would happen. In some ways it didn't get it crazy enough, frankly, but in others it's pretty accurate. Currency loses value overnight, etc.

The book is a bit bloated, overall. It has way too many characters, no true main character or protagonist, so I couldn't really care less when some of the final-hour reveals came by (e.g., two characters turn out to be siblings, but why does it matter?). But too many of the plot threads are left hanging, at the same time. One reveal that irked me a lot was a gay male character bedding a woman for strategic gain at the end. It came across as homophobic on the part of the author, predatory on the part of the woman character. It leaves his partner out in the dust - we never find out what happens to him.

It seems to be unsure how much it can take potshots at real-world figures. Rory Bremner, Jeremy Clarkson, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and the Milibands are namechecked (incidentally, Ed Miliband was the Labour leader for five years?? He made as much impression on me as a wet tea-towel...), but other characters are obvious ersatz versions of Theresa May, for example, and Twitter is renamed Witter. There's also a new King instead of Lizzy, and a Madame President in America - oh, if only!

But some aspects of it worked well. The central thriller plot works really well, building up subtly, and revealing the death of the PM about a third of the way into the book, which happened before all the other events that had been described up until then. I was shocked by the revelation and immediately hooked, and had to go back and check the previous chapters to find that they held together. I also was anxious on the eve of Theresa May's snap election this year and read through about half of the book that evening to calm my nerves a bit. ( )

Uninteresting; nothing here to motivate me to read further. Could not recommend. Did not finish. ( )

I’ve enjoyed reading Andrew Marr’s accessible history books, & was looking forward to a political thriller by an insider. But this was out & out farce. An interesting idea about the PM keeling over before the referendum vote & a plan to cover-up the event, but the characters were two-dimensional, and I didn’t gain any insight into the inner workings of the political class. Shame. ( )

Andrew Marr, Politikredakteur bei der BBC mit eigener
Talkshow, ist in Großbritannien eher für seine historischen
Sachbücher bekannt. Sein 1. Roman ist eine turbulente
Politsatire um das Referendum zum Verbleib des Königreichs
in der EU. Die konservative Partei Englands ist tief
gespalten in Befürworter, Gegner und Unentschlossene.
Wenige Tage vor der schicksalhaften Abstimmung verstirbt
ausgerechnet der populären Premierminister in seinem
Amtszimmer. Seine engsten Vertrauten sind so verzweifelt,
dass sie beschließen, mithilfe eines dubiosen Multitalents
die Öffentlichkeit erst mal über den Gesundheitszustand des
Premiers im Unklaren zu lassen. Hier nimmt die Satire
teilweise absurde Züge an. Dass trotzdem noch die meisten
Pointen sitzen, liegt vor allem an den profunden
Insiderkenntnissen und dem scharfzüngigen Humor des Autors.
Unterhaltsame Satire auf den Politik- und Medienzirkus
moderner Gesellschaften. Allen Bibliotheken mit
entsprechender Leserschaft gerne empfohlen. ( )