Hope Rides Again is the second in what I hope is an even longer series featuring former Vice President, Joe Biden, as an amateur sleuth, who is often assisted by his brother from another mother, one Barack Obama.

In Hope Rides Again, Biden is in Chicago, part of making his appearance at an event is to begin gathering support should he (no spoiler here) decide to run for President! Soon there is a mystery surrounding Barack's missing phone, and the almost death of a young campaign worker in the local rail yards.

Joe Biden begins to solve this one on his own, but in addition to Barack he is assisted again by the latter's Secret Service agent and also by the President's better half, one Michelle!

The author tells a good story, creates memorable, characters and has a lot of good fun with this story. I liked it even better than the first entry in the series. Though there are subtle jabs to people of a different political party, they are light, and few and should not stop anyone who wants a fast paced mystery to read this novel.

Andrew Shaffer has written another fun political thriller starring Joe Biden and Barack Obama. The parody centers on Obama’s old hometown of Chicago. We see a host of characters that are part of Chicago’s and Obama’s history - Rahm Emmanuel (Chicago mayor) and Michelle Obama. At the center of the plot is the attempted murder of a young man who is attempting to break away from the gang lifestyle Biden and Obama task themselves with tracking down the person who pulled the trigger and the person responsible for ordering the hit. The plot has more twists and turns than a sidewinder living in the desert, taking the reader from rail yards in the city’s southside to the top of the huge Ferris wheel on Navy Pier. Not a politically motivated book, the story is set in the weeks preceding Biden’s deciding to run President for the third time.

For the reader looking for some light reading during the summer months, Hope Rides Again may just fill the bill.
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This review is based on a free electronic copy provided by the publisher for the purpose of creating this review. The opinions expressed are my own.

Not quite as strong as the first outing in the series. which I put down to Biden being back in the public spotlight again. The jokes and humour are solid, and fans of Hope Never Dies will probably enjoy this as well, despite there being little in the way of surprises

Fun bit of escapism. .

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I personally loved the first book in this series by Andrew Shaffer. I was drawn in by the incredible cover illustration, and then sucked in by the story. It's hard to come back with a second book after the first one was so unique. And it's especially difficult because Joe Biden is back in the public eye again — and not necessarily 100% in a positive light. But this book stays true to the caricatures of Obama and Biden established in the first book, and if you can separate this adventure from the drama of the primary election, this book is so much fun. Plus, the cover just looks so great that it inspires lots of fun conversation with guests.

This book read like a bunch of tired jokes that a comedian tries before going to do stand-up. I appreciate the notion and think the characters are fun, but this one just was not for me.

I've been waiting for Shaffer to come out with a new Obama-Biden mystery. The first title in the series, Hope Never Dies, offered some spirit-lifting fun at a time when I desperately needed it given the national political climate. So, here we are, with 2020 and hope of some kind getting closer and the Obama-Biden team is back. Actually, we should call it the Biden-Obama team, since it's Joe who serves as the narrator in this series. I'm not sure I'm on board with Biden's current Presidential run, but I'm definitely on board with Biden the detective as depicted by Shaffer. The mystery plot isn't wildly complex, but it works. What's really a pleasure is the sense of humor that permeates these books, particularly some of the Biden asides. Stuck in traffic, Joe tells us "If I were still in office, I could have arranged a helicopter extraction. Good ol' Marine Two would've gotten me there faster than you could say 'Scott Pruitt.'" And considering a Presidential bid he observes "There was talk that, if I was elected president, I'd be the oldest president in history. Facts are facts, but mentally I was sharp as the reaper's sickle." This may not be Nobel-quality literature, but it's a guaranteed couple hours of fun when you really need it.

Yet again Andrew Shaffer had me laughing and enjoying the friendship of our past President and Vice-president. Good story, fun, light read. Just what I expected!

While I enjoyed HOPE RIDES AGAIN, I enjoyed it a little bit less than I enjoyed HOPE NEVER DIES, which is the first book of the Obama Biden Mysteries.

Even though I liked it less, this one is still good. Actually, there are even some ways in which I think it's slightly better than the first one. For example, I think this one may actually be a little bit funnier than the first book. Also, the character of President Obama seems more well-rounded in this one. Not that I felt there was anything wrong with him in the first book, but there's something in this one that makes him a little bit "better."

I think it's because author Andrew Shaffer keeps growing as a writer. He did an awesome job on the first book and has even stronger writing in this one. What I especially was impressed with was the many times he'd have Joe Biden refer to things that were going on in "the real world." Even though this is a work of fiction, Shaffer kept it very much tied to reality. And he does it in a way that's respectful to people in the real world too. There are some instances where Biden or Obama might refer to the current administration or to others in politics, but it's done in a way that's not directly slamming those people. For example, you might get the sense that the Joe Biden character doesn't care for a particular person, but it's done in a way that's not rudely insulting them.

Considering how heated things often are in the real world of politics, I'm sure it could have been easy for Shaffer to write the book in that way, where it got heavily into the "nastiness" that we see daily coming from famous politicians. But since this is a humorous fiction story, I'm glad he avoided those kinds of things and wrote it the way he did.

Personally, I read books like this one because I want to have a fun journey into a story that I can get lost in and have a good time reading. That definitely happened for me here with HOPE RIDES AGAIN.

So, why did I like this one less than I liked the first book? Well, without giving away anything about the story itself, I felt that Joe Biden's motivation for investigating the mystery here wasn't as strong as it was in the first book. In that one, he had a very personal connection to the case and I could easily see why he got wrapped up in it the way that he did. In this one, he barely even knew the victim of the crime that he was investigating, so his reasons for doing what he was doing seemed a little less believable to me this time around.

Having said that, I'd still very much be interested in reading future books in this series. I'm also interested in seeing what other types of stories Andrew Shaffer writes later in his career. I think that he's a very talented writer and I bet he's going to be giving us many great stories for a very long time.

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair review. Thank you to Quirk Books and to NetGalley.

HOPE RIDES AGAIN by Andrew Shaffer is the second title in his satirical mystery series featuring fictionalized Obama and Biden. The first, best-seller Hope Never Dies, was a 2018 Goodreads Choice Award Finalist. This new whodunit is set in Chicago which makes for added fun as the two characters race around town and out on Lake Michigan. They encounter Rahm Emanuel, of course, and there's also talk about Michelle's meeting with Oprah. Many of the adventures are definitely over the top as narrator Biden makes some crazy choices, opting, for example, to navigate the steam tunnels below the University of Chicago. But Shaffer uses the madcap activity to frame some amusing witticisms: "The tunnel was lit with flickering emergency bulbs. This is where democracy dies, I thought. In darkness." Here are a couple of other favorite observations: "He droned on. There wasn't any way to get a word in when Barack Obama was in professor mode." Or "I'd never been able to get a feel for the city. I liked New York style pizza with thin crust; I liked my politics free of corruption. ... we weren't just up against criminals – we had a whole damned city to contend with. A city that didn't put ketchup on hot dogs." Recently reviewed in The Washington Post, HOPE RIDES AGAIN is a quick read and a welcome diversion. Enjoy!

Link in live post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/07/10/miss-biden-obama-bromance-theres-another-book-that/?utm_term=.ae96f53da54d

The mystery-solving team of Obama and Biden return in this second installment of the Obama Biden Mystery series from Andrew Shaffer.

I really enjoyed Hope Never Dies, the first book in the series -- it had a nice fantasy sort of world, where Obama and Biden were no longer President and VP, but sort of super heroes just solving a murder for the good of it all. It was a story that made me smile at times, and I was left looking for more of this world so I was thrilled to see Hope Rides Again.

The political climate is a bit different with the release of this book but that didn't impact my enjoyment of it. The setting is Chicago (on St. Patricks day, no less), and the team gets embroiled in a bit of a situation that just begs for the bro-team to take it on. Hope Rides Again uses much of what Chicago is known for, good and bad in the telling of the story, but the fantasy team stays focuses (most of the time) on solving the crime and makes some interesting observations about some big issues while doing so.

Hope Rides Again is an entertaining story, especially when it doesn't take itself too serious. And there's Michelle Obama too!

Overall, I enjoyed this. The fun is in the details.

This fun to read book is part of a series and was a pleasure to read, as the premise is off the wall and the book is really campy. I enjoyed it because it provided much needed relaxation.

I was REALLY looking forward to this book steer reading the last one. The Biden and Obama solving a crime was a ton of fun in the first book. While the camaraderie was there again, the story itself really wasn't. I worry that my overblown anticipation was part of the problem.
The story is set, this time, in Chicago on St. Patrick's Day and plays to the tropes of Chicago politics as corrupt, everyone as dirty, and the citizenry as drunk. The mystery this time involves a kid (teenager) Joe met at an event Obama invited him to and Barak's missing cell phone. Through many twists and turns (and much deliberation about if Joe should run for president), the story unfolds. There are some funny jokes and probably the best analogy for confusion I have ever read that do make the book worth a read.
The problem, for me, is that there was not a lot of story there. Some of the pieces Biden puts together aren't implied or stated (no evidence in a mystery book?) and the characters have little more than cardboard personalities. I would like to have seen a bit more time spent with important characters and, frankly, more than a 10 hour window for the mystery to be solved (since the timeline was not well adhered to anyway).
If you liked the first book and can go into this one with a willingness to laugh, you will enjoy this book as well.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

The bromance it back in another of Andrew Shaffer's tongue and cheek Quirk mysteries. This time former VP Joe Biden and President Barrack Obama race across Chicago to solve an alleged gang shooting of one of Obama's Rising Star kids. Will they be able to catch the culprit, expose a dastardly scheme, and make it back to the conversation center in time to give a keynote address? This mystery cleverly crafts clues and suspicions while only taking place over the course of one day! Only time will tell if witty author Shaffer will continue the series, but one thing is for certain, this reviewer will continue to read them as long as he continues to write them.

I was fortunate to receive a free ARC of this book from Netgalley. The above thoughts, insights, or recommendations are my own meek musings.

I really loved this book. It was so funny and well written! If you have a fond memory of the Obama years, this is a good read to make you chuckle and reminisce!

The crime fighting duo that you didn’t think you needed but you definitely do. Our intrepid heroes and the ever present Steve are back to unravel another mystery which all starts with a missing Blackberry. With plenty of in-jokes and pop culture references to keep you chuckling, this is the perfect book to unwind with. It really shouldn’t work but I’m so glad that it does as its great fun.

The second case for our favorite BFFs turned detectives takes us to Chicago on St. Patrick's Day. While attending a high profile function, President Obama's Blackberry goes missing and former VP Joe Biden is on the trail to find it. After a young man is gunned down, the duo are determined to find out what is really going on in the Windy City. This book has a distinctive grittier tone to it by delivering a reality check to not only the characters but also to the readers with the portrayal of the dark underbelly on the streets where people are truly struggling to survive. However, the darkness is balanced out by the funny banter that comes out even in some of the most desperate situations they find themselves in. The bromance of this dynamic duo had me laughing out loud at times and nostalgic for better times.

Seeing Biden in direct contrast with the other Democratic presidential hopefuls now takes a bit of the shine off this extremely fictional yet still enjoyable book. If you liked the first one, you'll like this one as well, but perhaps just not as much.

Joe Biden and Barack Obama are back in this 2nd installment from Andrew Shaffer. This time the duo find themselves in Chicago (my home town), where Barack has traveled to attend a global economic forum. While on a book tour, Joe meets up with Barack in order to be introduced to someone who may be able to help him in his bid for the 2020 Presidential election. Barack’s Blackberry is stolen from the green room, and Joe suspects a young Shaun Denton, a teenager he has just met and to whom he has taken a liking. When Joe decides to try and track down Shaun and the missing Blackberry, he instead finds Shaun shot and unconscious. Joe and Barack join forces once again to discover who shot Shaun and why.

This is a witty, offbeat and rollicking caper that has these BFFs dodging St. Patrick’s Day leprechauns, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his henchman and wending their way through the sometimes gritty and crime ridden neighborhoods of Chicago narrowly escaping one predicament only to find themselves embroiled in another. Irreverent and fun, this is a great escape!

This was so entertaining. And campy. But I loved it. There were times where I questioned the validity of the things Biden and Obama said, but then I reminded myself this is fan fiction. It was a funny, quick read that didn’t disappoint.

I have to admit, I’m a sucker for a book where I know the main characters which is probably why I love anything historical. But I also love mysteries and this book checks both of those boxes. I really enjoyed reading this book & being able to imagine Joe Biden & Barack Obama’s voices as I read the dialogue. The reader most suspend disbelief to go along with the mystery but it’s a well plotted mystery. And like the first book it’s a fun read. I really enjoyed it & recommend it!