Marg was our host as we began our 25th year of the Muse and Views Book Club. Linda, Carla, Betty, Colette, Beth, and Shirley attended as we met to discuss Colette’s book choice, State of Terror by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny. In the book, the characters travel to Germany, Russia, Pakistan, Iran and is based in the U.S. so Marg took her cue from that and prepared appetizers to represent many of those options including beet bruschetta, a middle eastern platter, bratwurst with a beer sauce and we topped it off with ‘American as apple pie’.
We have previously read one of Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache books so we were familiar with her writing but this book took a very different turn into political intrigue. One might assume that the book’s Secretary of State is based on Hillary Clinton however it was not. The authors did choose people close to them for their inspiration for each of the characters. We found that the co-authors Clinton and Penny mimiced the State of Terror characters of Ellen and Betsy as they worked together in solving the mystery.
We all found the inside look at the Secretary of State's office fascinating plus, of course, the thinly veiled jab at Donald Trump. One of the members found some relationship with the Joshua Boyle incident which happened while Hilary Clinton was Secretary of State. Joshua is the son of a then Tax Court judge.
Overall, the book was enjoyed by all. There were portions of the book that were perhaps a little too close to current events to be able to read without serious thoughts about our world today. There were lots of twists and turns to the story with travel and politics along with the mystery to keep interest alive. It was particularly interesting for our group of ladies of a certain age to see the middle-aged women being taken for granted as being ‘less than’ while proving that they are really ‘more than’.
Thank you, Colette, for choosing State of Terror for our first read of 2023.
