I knew as soon as I read the synopsis for this book I needed to read it. 

“On Capitol Hill, they work you to death,” is the sentence the blurb leads with, and how was I supposed to resist that? I love a good political thriller–the more ruthless and scheming the better. One in the Chamber has it all: Corrupt and incompetent lawmakers, nepo babies, racists, limousine liberals, baby interns who will burn out before they ever get a chance to shine, baby progressives who have no power behind their seat, senior centrists who have too much power with too little wits left with which to wield them, a bunch of people telling lies to do what they think is the right thing, and a bunch of people living in a land of delusions. 

The thing is, I was really with this book, all the way in with it, until very close to the end. We’re talking maybe around 85% of the way in. Then this book quickly unraveled for me. My unraveled, I mean unspooled. Fast. I felt ripped out of the story I was reading and cast into another. While I understood what was happening and why it was too abrupt and it happened too late in the book for it to feel organic or anything but mocking by that point. It felt…performative. It didn’t feel like it belonged. It felt poorly stitched on, like an afterthought or something badly mended because it was done last second. It was a mess. 

The book, up until that last part, was a complicated but masterfully woven quilt of manipulations, strategy, false sympathies, playing to people insecurities, knowing when to push and/or pull, knowing when to back down or when to move ahead, knowing which buttons to push or which levers to pull. We knew we were dealing with an unreliable narrator, and it was fascinating to read as he wove his deceptive web. I just wish that ending could’ve been cleaned up. Then maybe this book would have earned the five stars it originally was headed towards. 

I was provided a copy of the physical ARC of this title by the Novel Suspects Insider’s Club (thanks, you guys!). All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.