False Flag in Autumn

False Flag in Autumn is a political thriller that asks why there wasn’t an October surprise before the 2018 mid-term elections.  The irrepressible Josie Kendall, introduced in 2016’s Damage Control (“ . . . consistently delightful . . . . Bowen’s ebullient antidote to election season blues” – Kirkus Reviews) finds herself in the middle of that provocative question.  Answering it quickly confronts her with an even more dramatic challenge:  What about 2020, with control of the White House at stake?  Will Josie find the guts to leave the Beltway cocoon, where the weapons are spin, winks, nudges, and strategic leaks, and venture into a darker world where the weapons are actual weapons?  Josie knows that you don’t do politics with choir girls, and that to end up on the side of the angels she’ll have to find some angels who play a little dirty.  Josie’s memoirs will not be titled Nancy Drew Goes to Washington, and as she says, “It’s like a spikes-high slide into second base:  It ain’t pretty – but that’s the way the game is played.”