The love child of the film The Manchurian Candidate and Nelson DeMille’s novel The Charm School, Deep Fake is a psychological thriller born of classic espionage infiltration operations from the cold war era. Ward Larsen delivers a fabulous novel featuring a blisteringly fast pace, strong female characters, invasive government technology, and an enduring covert operation audaciously attempting to rewrite the established world order. It’s fantastic, edge of your seat, make you sweat stuff that will have you screaming at the characters to move quicker to save the day, save themselves and save the country.
Bryce Ridgeway is an Army Ranger vet who now serves the people of Virginia as their congressman. But his military training has never left him and when he witnesses suspicious behavior by an individual at a Veterans Day political event, he acts fast and stops a terrorist attack from taking out several members of Congress. Hailed as a hero and with video of the incident going viral, Bryce’s life changes instantly and the Republican party seizes his rising star by kicking off a campaign to make him the next President of the United States. But his wife Sarah starts noticing little things that seem off about Bryce. He’s more forgetful than usual, doesn’t recognize a few people right away and in general isn’t acting like his normal self. At first, she thinks it’s a result of the combat trauma he’s experienced. Then she thinks he’s having an affair. But only after enlisting the help of her brilliant tech friend Claire to dig into Bryce’s recent movements does something more diabolical seem to be at play. Now it’s up to Sarah and Claire to uncover the truth and save the nation from unimaginable harm.
As a child of the cold war era, Deep Fake evoked deep nostalgic feelings from growing up in the 80’s during the tension-filled years before the fall of the Iron Curtain. It brought back memories of reading stories in the newspaper about the US and Russia constantly trying to outmaneuver each other. And it reminded me of reading The Charm School, a literary espionage masterpiece that forever hooked me on thrillers. Which all goes to say that if a novel can stir up all these feelings and experiences from years ago, it is nothing short of an expertly crafted thriller that is firing on all cylinders and connecting with readers on a deep level. Grade A stuff from Ward Larsen that should be on every thriller fan’s TBR pile.
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