Bookreview: Term Limits

Author: Vince Flynn
Genre: Thriller
Published: 1997
Personal rating: 5/5
Yearly count: 64

In one bloody night, three of Washington's most powerful politicians are executed with surgical precision. Their assassins then deliver a shocking ultimatum to the American government: set aside partisan politics and restore power to the people. No one, they warn, is out of their reach -- not even the president. A joint FBI-CIA task force reveals the killers are elite military commandos, but no one knows exactly who they are or when they will strike next. Only Michael O'Rourke, a former U.S. Marine and freshman congressman, holds a clue to the violence: a haunting incident in his own past with explosive implications for his country's future....

This thriller is fast-paced and Vince Flynn juggles the different strands of the story with ease. Never did I get confused about who I was reading about and one by one the different storylines started to come together to culminate in an exciting, realistic ending. For a first novel, this was absolutely amazing!

But more than just a well written thriller Term Limits is also a book that made me think. Who do you feel sympathy for? The killers, the FBI, or the politicians? Perhaps only for the innocents caught in the crossfire. Since the publication of this novel politics has only gotten worse and the monetary crisis this book predicts has come to pass. But when does fighting for freedom, for civil rights, become an ordinary crime? How far can and should you go in today’s world if you want to change it? Can killing ever be justified? Though questions that this book made me ask, and I still haven’t found an answer to them. And that, I think, is the true power of this book.