Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 11, 1994 TAG: 9412140033
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: F-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO BOOK PAGE EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
John Calvin Batchelor has concocted an engrossing political thriller in the "Seven Days in May" school.
It's about an attempted coup d'etat by a ruthless vice-president against an emotionally disturbed president. Suffering from severe depression, President Teddy Jay turns the office over to Shy Garland. When Jay decides that he has sufficiently recovered and wants to return to the White House. Garland cites technicalities in the Twenty-Fifth and refuses to leave. He thinks he has the political backing he needs to hang on, but if he doesn't, there's also a military option, Operation Father's Day.
Jack Longfellow, governor of Maine and probable Republican presidential nominee, hears the first whispers of the plot from his lover. Telling his wife Jean, Maine senator and probable vice-presidential nominee, is understandably problematic. Once it's accomplished, the plot shifts into high gear and never really slows down.
That quick pace is a mixed blessing. It will keep readers turning the pages, but the cast is so large that it can also be confusing. Batchelor's setting is 2003, and his predictions about advances in personal communications and computers are probably on the money. His vision of crumbling governments in Egypt and Europe depending on American military assistance to survive is more speculative. And his depiction of senior Army officers so easily involved in treason is hard to accept.
The domestic side of the story is much more persuasive. Anyone who follows politics will recognize most of Batchelor's characters. They are thinly fictionalized combinations of real people - just as ambitious, greedy, engaging, likeable, corrupt and goofy as the bunch we've got now.
So, even though Batchelor's plot stretches credulity to the breaking point at times and even though he overplays his hand at the end, "Father's Day" is perfect company for a winter's weekend. Don't wait for the mini-series.
by CNB