Hocus POTUS [Hardcover]

Malcolm MacPherson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2007

THE CATCH-22 OF THE IRAQ WAR

What’s driving the ultra-dedicated State Department staffers nuts in the former Republican Palace in Baghdad’s Green Zone? Is it the rising insurgency? The lack of power and water? The tide of utter chaos? The sinking feeling that the adventure is going south?

No.

What bothers them is WMDs. Without one, how can their beloved POTUS (security shorthand for President of the United States) justify this mess? Not finding a single WMD to justify it all is making POTUS look bad. Real bad. Enter Rick Gannon, Ambassador Goodhair’s advisor-turned-war profiteer, recently imprisoned but now on the lam. Little does the Ambassador and his staff know that Rick––along with his pickup band of brigands, including a homesick Air National Guard pilot, a sourpuss Defense Intelligence agent, a jaded TV cameraman, and an aging Iraqi soccer star––may hold the key to POTUS’ salvation. Written by the man who covered Ambassador Paul Bremer in Iraq for Time magazine, Hocus POTUS is a novel rich in real-life details and thinly veiled portrayals. It's also a hysterically irreverent—and masterfully crafted—antiwar satire that will keep you guessing to the end.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This rollicking political farce from former Time and Newsweek correspondent MacPherson is set between the fall of Baghdad and the capture of Saddam. Roguish hero Rich Gannon has advised the Bremer-like proconsul in Iraq, Ambassador Taylor, that the looting is serious, that the Iraqi army shouldn't be disbanded, and that the WMD are a figment of the White House's imagination. Taylor's assistant soon has Rich on a cargo plane to remote Erbil. Gannon, ever the improviser, quickly organizes a detour to Turkey for a discrete heist—but Rich and his cohort are arrested. Held in Iraq's National Stadium, Rich & Co. plot escape and a new scheme: faking a WMD to sell to the Coalition Authority. Meanwhile, other plots are hatching in the Green Zone among the ambassador's fraying staff. MacPherson, author of the nonfiction Afghanistan report Robert's Ridge, unfurls this knowing and indignant tale with ease, setting it against the background of Iraqi woe and of nod-wink romance. The book's caper set pieces are too garish, and weak characterization fails Rich in particular. But MacPherson effectively portrays the Green Zone as a zoo of ambition, backbiting and incompetence. (July)
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Review

“A hilarious yet passionate antiwar satire that centerson the US search for a WMD to justify invasion and a con man's ingenious plot to supply one.MacPherson's breakneck narrative—redolent of Carl Hiaasen’s exuberance and Elmore Leonard’s cynicism—is an irresistible portrait of greed and incompetence run amok.”
—The Boston Globe

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 285 pages
• Publisher: Melville House (July 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193363328X
• ISBN-13: 978-1933633282
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.3 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,845,931 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

MALCOLM MACPHERSON is a journalist and author of 12 fiction and non-fiction books, including, most recently, his bestseller about the Afghan war, Robert's Ridge. He served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam, and worked as a foreign correspondent for Newsweek for 12 years, covering the Yom Kippur war and other notable events. Most recently, he reported from Iraq for Time Magazine while living in the presidential palace in the newly formed "Green Zone." He lives in Virginia with his wife.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FUNNIEST ANTI-WAR BOOK SINCE MASH, August 9, 2007

By 

ATTICUS (NEW YORK, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hocus POTUS (Hardcover)

As the author said in a radio interview where I learned about this book, he was answering Bush's "farce with farce, fiction with fiction," and he does it with gusto! This is a very funny book that always makes the point of the fiction that got us into Iraq (WMD). The author allows the reader the catharsis of "getting back" at Bush et al by riding along with the book's caper to sell the government a fake WMD and make a huge score in the process. HOCUS POTUS succeeds brilliantly in what it sets out to do. It gave me wild characters, a dynamite plot, and explosive laughs page after page. It's every bit as funny an anti-war satire as were the film versions of MASH, THREE KINGS, and even -- highest praise -- DR. STRANGLOVE. Get it!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A microview of warfare, September 12, 2007

By 

Stephen Sadowski - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hocus POTUS (Hardcover)

All in all, this book was an excellent vehicle about human vanity and arrogance, told with the best of humor to take the sting out of foolishness.