The Final Day

Pompous, windy political discussions swamp the few effective action scenes in bestseller Forstchen’s conclusion (after 2015’s One Year After) to his trilogy set in a United States reeling from the effects of a devastating electromagnetic pulse attack. John Matherson, commander of the independent State of Carolina, spearheads efforts to reconstitute pre-attack technology. Meanwhile, Gen. Bob Scales, Matherson’s friend and former commanding officer, offers Matherson and his community an ultimatum: they must unite with a shadowy reconstituted federal government or die. But Scales can’t fool his old friend. Matherson and his followers eventually uncover a conspiracy of governmental elites, who violated their oaths to the Constitution and saved themselves before the attack, then held on to power at the people’s expense. Needless to say, “the criminal entity that claims to be the federal government” comes to a bad end. Those who buy into right-wing wish fulfillment fantasies will be enthralled. Agent: Eleanor Wood, Spectrum Literary Agency. (Jan.)