Political Thriller / Espionage – April 3

The Southeastern Mass. Reader’s Advisory Roundtable (SE-RART) meets Tuesday, Apr. 3, 10 am-12 pm, at the John Curtis Free Library, 534 Hanover St., in Hanover, to continue our 2017-18 Action/Adventure genre study with a discussion of Political Thrillers and Espionage.

The benchmark title for the April meeting is The Camel Club, a novel by David Baldacci – first in the Camel Club series. Please choose another title from either the espionage or political thriller subgenre as your second title. (See suggestions of authors below.)

Short, additional readings for discussion at the April meeting will be emailed to registered participants. Please register for the April meeting on the MLS Web site , and let us know if you don’t receive the email with the supplemental readings.

Even if you don’t get to read two books in their entirety, please be prepared to talk briefly about each of them in terms of reader’s advisory appeal factors, as laid out by RA-guru Joyce Saricks:

• Pacing (e.g. breakneck, unhurried, densely written)
• Characterization (e.g. quirky, well developed, ensemble cast)
• Plot/Storyline (e.g. action-oriented, sensual, domestic, sexually explicit)
• Tone/Mood (e.g. gritty, heartwarming, political)
• Style/Language (e.g. sophisticated, homespun, frank)
• Frame/Setting (e.g. urban, rural, world-building, time-frame)

Again, please don’t stay away from the meeting if you can’t finish two novels in time; if you need to, you can follow the “Read a Book in Ten Minutes” guidelines!

If you’re looking for ideas for your second title, we have put together lists of possible authors. (There’s some overlap in these two lists, and not all books by these authors fall into the same genre.)

ESPIONAGE FICTION AUTHOR POSSIBILITIES

Ted Bell
Tom Clancy
Karen Cleveland (Need to Know)
Stephen Coonts
Charles Cumming
David Downing
Clive Egleton
Vince Flynn
Alan Furst
Mark Greaney
W.E.B. Griffin
Jack Higgins
Stephen Hunter
John Lawton
John Le Carre
Gayle Lynds
Francine Mathews
Andy McNab
Oliver North
Christopher Reich
Stella Rimington
Leslie Silbert
Daniel Silva
Taylor Stevens
Maureen Tan

POLITICAL THRILLER AUTHOR POSSIBILITIES

David Baldacci
Glenn Beck
Dale Brown
Marc Cameron
Tom Clancy
Ben Coes
Stephen Coonts
Barry Eisler
Vince Flynn
W.E.B. Griffin
K.J. Howe
Mike Maden
Jason Matthews
Brad Meltzer
Patrick Robinson
Joel Rosenberg
Robert J. Sawyer
Brad Thor

If you want to post information about your second title before the meeting, you can!