Lots of action and laughs but also a little slow at times. Also, a little weird and a little meta since Biden actually IS running for president.

I didn’t really like the 1st one, and this one wasn’t a lot better. I still think the concept is awesome and hilarious though.

This book was a hoot! Laugh- out - loud funny mystery starring two of my favorite politicians. Suspend belief and take a fun joy ride with Barack and Joe.

This was the only thing I could face reading this weekend. Really, truly. Because…reasons. Obvious reasons.

When I read the first book in this series, Hope Never Dies, I read it for the nostalgia factor. Honestly, who didn’t? But at the time it was a bit like the joke about the bear dancing, in that you’re not surprised it’s done well, you’re pretty astonished that it’s done AT ALL.

And it was done better than expected. Not so much the mystery as recapturing the bromance between Biden and Obama.

This second outing is a bit more something. I’m not quite sure whether that something is serious or thoughtful or both. On the one hand, it’s hard to take either of these books seriously, and on the other hand, there’s quite a bit more of an attempt at capturing the actual moment in this one, where the last one was just pure escapist nostalgia.

The story here takes place on St. Patrick’s Day weekend of 2019, in a city that celebrates the day by painting the town red and turning the river green. Sweet home, Chicago, at least as the Blues Brothers used to sing it.

As this story goes, Biden is passing through Chicago at the behest of his friend and former boss, President Barack Obama, at the end of a long, grueling book tour. (A tour that in real life would have been for his 2017 book, Promise Me, Dad that reflects on the loss of his son Beau to brain cancer.)

But in this fictional version, the book is unnamed but Joe is at a real-life crossroads. He’s considering one more run at the Presidency – and we all know which way that decision went. How it all turns out is something we’ll discover tomorrow night, or Wednesday morning, or sometime later this month. (Also the reason I dug this book out of the virtually towering TBR pile in the first place.)

In the whirlwind 24 hours in which this mystery takes place, Joe and Barack keep taking turns, both with and occasionally without each other, to search for the President’s missing Blackberry, only to find themselves scraping the mean streets of Chicago, searching for the places where one kid went wrong, along with which of the adults in his life led him that way.

On the surface, it’s a story about saving the life of one young man. Underneath, it might be a story about saving the soul of America. Wouldn’t that make a great campaign slogan?

Escape Rating B: One of the things I was not expecting from this story was just how steeped in nostalgia for Chicago it turned out to be. Even if that nostalgia was a mixture of love for Chicago as it is now, in all of its sprawling, brawling and seedy glory, and the Chicago of popular imagination of its storied past, the Chicago of the broad shoulders and the even bigger guns.

Because in this story there’s certainly an element of the Chicago way from the movie The Untouchables, with its iconic line, “Here’s how you get him. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue! That’s the Chicago way,”

In Hope Rides Again, that’s still the Chicago way. The city is still politically corrupt, everyone is still on the take, and influence and justice are for sale to the highest bidder or the biggest gun. It’s the Chicago that the victim was in up to his neck, in spite of being tapped for the former President’s “Rising Stars” program.

It’s this Chicago that our surprisingly still dynamic duo have to investigate in order to find out who is really behind – not that theft of the President’s Blackberry – but rather a heist that has the potential to put a whole lot more unregistered guns on the streets of Chicago. There’s already more than enough violence in that powder keg, no one needs to throw more fuel on that fire.

In this middle of this rather crazed mystery thriller, complete with car chases, boat chases, the threat of swimming with the fishes in Lake Michigan (in OMG March when the lake is truly freezing) and the helicopter rescue featured on the book’s cover, there’s a story about the enduring friendship between two men who originally had nothing in common, with the surprising twist that the older man is thinking about continuing the younger man’s legacy – and not the other way around.

A lot of this story is just purely for fun. And nostalgia of all kinds. When this was published in July of 2019 Biden had launched his campaign, but even the Iowa caucuses were still months in the future. As was the COVID19 pandemic.

At the time this was published, it was more in the nature of fun speculation than anything else. And in that light the amount of time that the author spends inside Joe’s head feels a bit odd. I wanted more mystery and more banter. It’s possible the internal speculation just feels weird because this is a real person whose thought processes can only be speculated about, set at a time period when we have to wonder what was being pondered and decided. YMMV

Let’s face it, this is not a book that’s going to have lasting literary value – and it shouldn’t. It is still a whole lot of fun, although not quite as much fun as the first book. But it was definitely a good reading time and a great way to get my mind off of Tuesday, November 3, 2020.

More than anything, I can’t help but think of the title as both a description and a prayer. Hope is riding again. I want it to win the race.

Thanks to Quirk Books for the chance to read this book. Apologies for not having read it sooner. It was a fine book and I appreciate the chance to see what all the fuss is about.

This book was a steady read, not gripping but nor awful either. I enjoyed the relationship between Obama and Biden and the book was different to other books. However I wish I had read the first book before this one, I think that would have increased my enjoyment of it.

A great sequel to the first, exciting story and fun relationship and banter between Obama, Biden, and even Steve.

This book isn't the best book I've read, but it was entertaining. I liked the first one better, bu this was still and enjoyable read!

These are definitely my favorite guilty pleasure reads ;-) Much like the first, the intrigue is in the hilarious campy-ness and the Obama Biden bromance :-) This time in Obama's hometown of Chicago! I found the first half a little slow, and figuring out who was involved in the crime wasn't hard, but there were some good twists at the end.

Some of the luster has worn off of the Obama/Biden bromance of late with some of the allegations against Biden. Unfortunately, that does bleed into the enjoyment of this series, despite the fact that this is a fictionalized, idealized Biden.

Of course, Biden’s real life bad behavior is no fault of the author, and the Obama/Biden partnership still plays well in this fun sequel as long as you read it as exactly what it is: fiction.

I would like to thank @netgalley and @quirkbooks for Hope Rides Again. Due to time constraints and feeling overwhelmed to complete the review before I lost the ability, I opted to read the books out of order. With that said, I loved the book as I have not read the first one. This book is fun, unique, and incredibly different from anything else out there. I loved that the author created this series and I have recommended to several friends. Not to mention, the cover has the infamous tan suit!!! Loved it.

I love this very silly series and think this one was even better than the first. Please make it a trilogy (perhaps on the campaign trail?).

I was relieved to know that Hope Rides again could be read as a stand-alone novel. I heard so many great things about Hope Never Dies, and I was excited to have been approved for Hope Rides Again. Obama and Biden’s bromance is legendary. I was so impressed by the concept of both books. Who doesn’t love reading a fast-paced mystery? One of the best plot references? Obama’s missing Blackberry. That brought back great memories! There were a lot of puns and jokes which put a damper on my enjoyment of the book, and I was hoping for little to no reference of the 2020 election (ahh the craziness of it all), but overall, the book was a light and fun read. Now I need to go back and read the debut!!

Thank you to Netgalley and Quirk Books for the advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review

The first book was funny and new. This one seems a little more sad and was much harder for me to get into. I did enjoy it once I did, but it fell a little flat for me with a rehash of some of the same things that were funny in the first. It's all been done, I guess.

I enjoyed reading the first book in this series, "Hope Never Dies," so I was eager to read this one. I like how it was in a different setting and just as plausible as the first book. Joe Biden's voice and the banter between Obama and Biden even seemed to improve upon the first book which was also well done. The mystery was intriguing and the detective work contained a lot of interesting scenes. The humor was quite enjoyable. However, I wasn't as thrilled with this book as I was with the first. The nostalgia I enjoyed from the first book as we were mourning the last presidential election was just what we needed. With Biden in the presidential primary race and the spotlight shining on just him, his partnership with Obama seems a relic from a time that we no longer live in.

It's St. Patrick's Day in Chicago. Joe Biden is in town on an invitation from Obama to meet a wealthy benefactor who could help him out if he decides to run for president (he still hasn't made up his mind yet). A mystery pops up when Obama's Blackberry disappears and their chief suspect is killed in a South Side railyard. Police believe it's another gang-related shooting, but Biden thinks otherwise.

This is not an Agatha Christie caliber mystery, however what makes it fun is the humor and picturing our former president and vice-president running around Chicago trying to solve the case. Soon-to-be-Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel kept popping up. Biden sure isn't shy about how he feels about Rahm!

"Hope Rides Again" is the sequel to the hilarity that was Andrew Shaffer's first humorous take on the Obama/Biden bromance.

What's good: Once again, the inner voice of Biden is hilarious and there are several character appearances who will make any political person giggle. The bromance is here and as affectionate as ever. In addition, if you like Chicago, the book lovingly pays tribute to it.

What's iffier: It is (understandably) very difficult for the author to deal with the race to 2020. Mentions of the current campaign take us a little out of the warm and fuzzy world of remembering a time when our White House was in the hands of thoughtful, intelligent, and genuinely kind people.

(This review is based on an ARC provided to me by NetGalley.)

So this is the second book in the series. I didn't get approved for the first one and went out and bought it. I ended up buying other books by the same author. This book was another fun romp, at least in my opinion, I would most definitely read more books both in this series and by this author.

Thank you Andrew Shaffer for another fun read that brings my favorite political duo back into my life. I do wish the Obama Biden Mysteries had lower stakes and read more like a cozy mystery. The mixture of violence, Delaware references, and Biden's quips makes the tone a little unbalanced. However, I still recommend this book for anyone who misses Obama and Biden and want to believe they're still teaming up to serve Americans.

Wow, I didn't know there was an Obama/Biden series. What a hoot! I was not an Obama fan until Trump took over that position, but I really enjoyed this story and want to read the rest of them (I hope there are more to come, anyway). I could just hear so much of that dry humor coming out of Obama's mouth. Everyone is sure to enjoy it, regardless of his political affiliations/preferences.