'THE PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTER'....BILL CLINTON DAYDREAMS HIMSELF AS HARRISON FORD

 The President's Daughter by Bill Clinton and James Patterson (2021)    We're thinking a book like this might stick in the minds of future presidents as an alternative to writing those 5 pound doorstop memoir volumes that pile up in the bargain bins a year after they're published.

           And we're all for it. It's no end of hilarious, guilty pleasure fun  to have Bill Clinton and that tireless one-man bestselling machine James Patterson imagine a POTUS not unlike Harrison Ford in "Air Force One".

              "The President's Daughter" reads like an imaginary novelization of an imaginary sequel to that 1997 'POTUS-goes-Die-Hard-On-Terrorists'  thriller.......

                Come on, who doesn't want read about ex-Prez (and ex Navy SEAL)  Matthew Keating putting together his own team of Scooby Commandos to hunt down an infinitely evil Middle East terrorist who kidnapped his plucky, resourceful teen daughter Melanie?

                Oh yes please!

                But wait......there's villainy and duplicity afoot coming from so-called friends and foes alike, including Machiavellian maneuvering from the current POTUS Pamela Barnes, Keating's former Veep who schemed with her equally power mad husband to derail Keating's chances of getting re-elected.

                Also muddying the waters - a shifty Chinese diplomat/spy with ties to the terrorist lunatic .Only this time he's been tasked by his masterminds with arranging Melanie's rescue as a public relations coup for the Chinese.....except, secretly he's hiding a murderous anti-Keating agenda of his own. 

                 As with all James Patterson collaborative thrillers (no matter who shares authorship with him), the 3 page chapters fly by. the action never relents, and the various climactic showdowns are expertly calibrated to make you shout "Yessssssss!"

                Shameless cheesy junk?  Hell yeah.

                Did we gobble up every page of it like a tub 'o hot buttered popcorn?  Hell yeah.

                We have no rational defense for gorging on this book, any more than we have any rational defense for re-watching "Air Force One", "Patriot Games" and all the  otherDie Hard clones every so often. 

                 If you only sample literary fiction, then of course you shouldn't go anywhere near this book. But if you love a fun wallow in well crafted, slick and totally nonsensical entertainment, this one's a 4 star (****) bell ringer.