I so enjoyed this book!! A book about a new president, behind the scenes in a fictional government. I could not put the book down. It had something for everyone and you never knew what to expect from page to page and chapter to chapter. It included the inner workings of a government; companies; presidential supporters and foreign countries. You won't be disappointed!!

This is a story of political intrigue and backroom shenanigans among Washington’s elite. The country’s new president, a tech entrepreneur named David Traynor, has daring plans to break Congress’ political logjam and solve America’s knottiest problems. Most of these proposals will be public, but his most pressing concern, climate change, will be tackled in secret. Millions will be secretly redirected to a small coterie of start-ups researching a new kind of battery storage.

The new administration seeks assistance from investigators Peter Rena and Randi Brooks. Peter is the protagonist of this series. He becomes the target of a cyber bullying campaign and his girlfriend puts their relationship on hold at the same time. Peter and Randi run a secret investigation into the start-ups working on battery research to find out whether foreign governments are secretly acquiring information. Peter and his firm try to figure out who’s behind the cyber bullying campaign.

The political intrigue is believably brought to life. The author has clearly done a lot of research - perhaps he works in a government agency, given the amount of detail and attention to process. The large cast of characters is nicely fleshed out. The issues are important and timely and the novel is well written.

However, it didn’t gel for me. There was way too much exposition and background. It felt like almost nothing happened until the last half of the book, when a couple of dramatic events finally jumpstart some action. I liked the characters and appreciated the inclusion of some gay characters. But it just felt like not that much happened. There are good ideas here, but it didn’t grab me.

This was full of suspense from the very first page. It was an interesting read and was one that I was definitely intrigued in. It was political, which is something I don’t usually read about very often. But I gained new insight and perspective on some matters, such as climate change which was a prevalent topic in this book. I’m new to this author and series, but I enjoyed it enough to read some of his other books if I happen upon them.

A very interesting book I'll take on how the med,ium is destroyiPeople's lives. Peter Rena gets a Twitter about something he did in the past. His wife loved him because of this reason.. They hired him as a person to help David TR ATR Aynor get elected president in the United States. See how this starts backing up on him. Friend RANDVLCOKS is also involved in this as well. Even the vice president Wendy is Involve 2. It shows how things can sparrow add control so fast. I'm already trying to do damage control at this point in the book. The title says it all the days to come you never know when it's gonna come especially from your past to your future.. Peter thought he was immune to all this but things catch up real quick. How the newspapers started to get the TV started to go On him.

I’ve read all of the books in this series and this was my least favorite of them. Maybe it felt too true to life and cynical. This story just didn’t have the umph the others had.

Published by Ecco on November 23, 2021

I read fiction, in part, to escape from reality. I don’t read many political novels because politics in the US is so ugly that I don’t need the stress of reading fiction that reinforces the ugliness. Escaping from politics with a novel about politics only works if the novel is amusing. The Days to Come isn’t funny but it is only a political novel in part. By the second half, the plot has morphed into a crime story.

The Days to Come is apparently the latest in a series that features political fixer Peter Rena. I can’t review it in that context because I’m not familiar with series.

Tom Rosenstiel imagines an unusual situation: a male Democrat runs for president with a female Republican running for vice president. They win and the president, David Traynor, dies within the first hundred days of his presidency. That’s an interesting plot driver, although the first half of the book seems intended as a blueprint to enact a political agenda. The agenda is worthy — it focuses on taking meaningful action to address climate change and six other crises — but that aspect of the story is a bit wonky to work well in a novel.

Traynor’s grand idea is one he didn’t share with the public before the election. He plans to make a massive public investment in flow batteries, an energy storage device that would allow solar and wind power to supplant fossil fuels. Traynor knows that half of Congress will oppose the investment because they are in bed with the fossil fuel industry and have no interest in solving existential threats, so Traynor uses his emergency powers to execute a secret plan that diverts budgeted money (primarily from national security) to invest in several startups that are working on the technology.

Part I sets up the premise and seems largely geared toward policy wonks. In Part II, the new president, Wendy Upton, worries that Traynor’s machinations, however well intended they might have been, will be exposed, jeopardizing both her presidency and the program itself. She enlists the help of Rena and his partner Randi Brooks to determine whether the startups are secure or whether the battery plan might be leaked to the press or stolen by Russian, Chinese, or Middle Eastern spies. Creeping into the story from time to time is a young man whose weak mind is easily influenced by the Q conspiracies that populate the least rational corners of the web.

Part III begins with a death that seems to be catastrophic for the battery plan. Was the death caused by murder? Well, this is a crime novel so the death is at least suspicious. Still, the primary crime that the book explores is not murder but foreign and corporate espionage. Investors from Russia and China pour investment capital into tech firms, make sure to have one of their own on the firm’s board. That person sends the company’s secrets back to the government that is either employing or threatening them. An FBI agent in the novel suggests that tech spying is commonplace, which is probably true, perhaps making this a cautionary novel. In any event, the protagonists devise a plan to root out spies that drives the last half of the story.

Rena’s background gives rise to a subplot. In his military days, Rena investigated a general, found that the general was guilty of sexual harassment on multiple occasions, and precipitated the general’s resignation by confronting him with the evidence in a way that might have been unnecessarily embarrassing. The internet has tumbled to this news and has gone nuts, as it tends to do, with the far right blaming Rena for destroying a man with trumped up charges. Rena also blames himself for destroying his marriage by creating stress that might have caused his wife’s multiple miscarriages. The net, of course, asserts that the marriage ended because Rena was a wife abuser. Perhaps the novel is also intended as a cautionary reminder of the destruction that is so easily inflicted by internet liars on the far right. If so, I doubt that the book will raise red flags as any reader attracted to this book is probably well aware of the daily onslaught of internet lies that pollute public discourse.

The components of The Days to Come are individually interesting, but they never quite cohere. The story can’t seem to decide whether it wants to be a political novel, a murder mystery, a story about radicalized self-styled heroes whose minds have been corrupted by far-right conspiracy theories, a story about the orchestration of internet lies to destroy political opponents, or a corporate espionage novel. Rosensteil tries to do too much and fails to anything well. The story moves in so many directions that it never gains momentum in any direction. On the other hand, as a “message” novel about the need for bold action to solve serious political problems and the risk that corporate espionage will undermine those efforts, The Days to Come has some value.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

I enjoyed this book. It is the first one I have read of this series. The newly elected president has many ideas to improve the USA. His vice president is a woman from the other political party. Rena is having some issues of his own. I would definitely read others in this thriller series.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Ecco and HarperCollins Publishers for allowing me to read this ARC free for an honest review. The US has a new president, David Traynor, who isn’t a politician. He’s a billionaire tech entrepreneur and a Democrat, who chooses a female Republican, Wendy Upton, for his running mate. Traynor is determined to find new energy sources in order to save the planet. Peter Rena and Randi Brooks have a small consulting firm and were hired by Upton to investigate someone who was threatening to destroy her career when she was asked to be Traynor’s VP. Upton keeps them on to investigate the big players in battery research, as the leaders of several companies doing renewable energy research also have ties in foreign countries and could very well be spies for countries like Russia and China. Although I didn’t understand all the technology, I hope Mr. Rosenstiel has sent a copy of this book to President Biden, as I thought some of the ideas in this story could do a lot to combat climate change. I thought this story was pretty good and it kept me reading. It’s well written and has everything I like – politics, efforts to curb climate change, crazy people on the dark web and personal relationships that need mending. This is the Rosenstiel’s third Rena/Brooks novel, and I liked their characters so much that I’ll be hunting for the first two.

I enjoyed this book. I found the political climate of the book to be timely. It gave me some interesting insights to today's problems.

Everyone knows Washington, D.C., is gridlocked. At least it was until David Traynor was elected POTUS. Like a recent real-world president, Traynor had campaigned as a disrupter; but unlike that president he intended to disrupt for people instead of party; so much so that he chose his running mate from the opposition. One of the reasons their campaign succeeded is the team of Rena and Brooks, the investigation/image firm that saved the career of Traynor’s VP. But even as the new president set out to change the way government works (for the better…), Peter Rena’s world began crumbling around him.

Some denizen of the Dark Web had Rena in the crosshairs; and the phony cyberattacks were both relentless and vicious, so much so that Rena became persona non grata with anyone who cared about a public image. Washington is, after all, less interested in truth than in optics. It didn’t help Rena’s wounded pride that his love life seemed to be circling the drain at the same time.

Nonetheless, Peter and his partner Randi Brooks had an important job to do; keeping a top-secret Traynor program on track, a program that just might help solve the climate crisis. No matter what the cyberattacks were saying, Rena was on the case; ferreting out industrial espionage in the halls of Silicon Valley… where knowing too much might get you dead.

Tom Rosenstiel’s fourth Rena thriller, The Days to Come, picks up where Oppo left off; with the election of the Traynor-Wendy Upton ticket. Unlike that previous installment, however, Rena is the target this time… he just doesn’t know why (or who). Rosenstiel delivers a concise analysis of how such attacks begin, flourish, and ultimately play out in “meatspace”: think Comet Ping Pong, right down to the gun-toting true believer looking for secret basement pedophilia chambers.

Rosenstiel also devotes considerable page space to his character’s project to make the USA a leader in energy storage; arguing that present-day battery technology is hampering any move to renewable energy. The solution, according to the book, is flow-battery technology. Little of the science is discussed, however, as there are mainly references to the technology.

Apparently not content with those two threads to his narrative, Rosenstiel also introduces some ideas for how to get Congress of its rear and back to work for the people (all of them). First is a Scandinavian model of legislation: lean bills with short timelines instead of bloated, encyclopedic lists of pork. More interesting, however, is doing away with the so-called “Hastert Rule,” also known as “the majority of the majority” – a means by which any hope of compromise in Congress is summarily executed by party leaders.

While Rosenstiel’s tale is most definitely topical, the four threads – corporate espionage, cyberattacks, Rena’s gloomy demeanor, the battery technology – still add up to a slow journey through Rena’s personal misery. That measured pace is probably why none of the usual suspects has labeled the plot “propulsive,” for good reason: It isn’t. It barely reaches the threshold of political thriller. Instead, it’s more brains than brawn, just like its protagonist.

And that's not a bad thing: we need more thought and less action these days.
copyright © 2021 scmrak

I received an advance reader’s copy of The Days to Come in exchange for my honest review.

The Days to Come
By Tom Rosenstiel

In today's climate of government grinding to a screeching halt due to politicians being more concerned with maintaining power than representing their constituents, and the whole country being at odds, this book puts forth the idea that a "disrupter president" with the brains and courage to take on the establishment might be the only hope to get the country back on track with a functioning government.

When tech entrepreneur David Traynor becomes the Democratic presidential nominee, he reaches across the aisle and selects Republican Senator Wendy Upton as his running mate. The President-elect is determined to hit the ground running in order to make an end run around the congressional powers that be and to get the government moving again and give the American people hope.

Peter Rena and Randi Brooks are partners in a firm designed to help their clients identify and solve problems and avert potential crises. Due to their previous work for Upton they come into the White House sphere to work with the new administration. The rest, as they say, is history.

I really liked this book. The characters were believable. The plot twists were not predictable. The premise might well be what we need today. My only issue is that the book ended a little abruptly, leaving a certain ambiguity about what the end result would be. But then, maybe that is what Mr. Rosenstiel was aiming for. I would definitely recommend this book.

The Days to Come is a page-turner that brings home the need for climate action now - great characters, full of action and suspense.

Great book full of suspense and action would recommend to all my friends and family Very good book

It may be a symptom of being a book in the middle of a series, but I found this book difficult to follow and get interested in.

Tom Rosenstiel's third installment of the Peter Rena/Randy Brooks series is his best yet, possibly because the first two novels set up so many backstories that play out here, though you don't have to have read them to love this one. A can't-put-downable political thriller vaulting masterly political fixers Rena and Brooks into a netherworld of ripped-from-the-headlines DC political polarization, internet smear attacks, romantic trauma, and secret environmental plots. A veteran Washington journalist and pundit, Rosenstiel's veracity is both insightful and intricately laced through his plot. Highly recommended.

Disclaimer: I was given a free advance reader's copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

I thought it was okay honestly I had a really hard time getting into this book and it drug out a lot. I also didn’t realize it was a series that was my fault for lot realizing it wasn’t a bad book just not something I normally read.

I am not a big fan of large cast of characters, but this book was engaging enough and taken from current events that it grabbed me from the beginning and didn't let up. The authors take pains to make you think it is a realistic look at the power plays going on in contemporary DC, when a Democrat is narrowly elected President, with a Republican woman running mate. Hey, it could happen. But the many players in this novel adds value, and the authors take pains to remind us of their roles as they are introduced into the narrative. The book's sudden ending was the only disappointment in an otherwise hard-driving story line, and the conflicts and scrapes that the characters have all very entertaining. Even if you aren't a political junkie, you will relish the "it could actually happen" scenarios.

I was extremally lucky to have been granted a prerelease copy of "The Days to Come" through NetGalley and Ecco Harper Collins .

I have to hand it to Tom Rosenstiel. What a book! The Days to Come, the most recent in the Peter Rena series grabbed hold and never let go. This is the first of the series that I have read and will certainly not be the last.

As I read I could easily imagine this being pulled from todays news headlines. This nonstop story of intrigue and espionage never let up. The story line is compelling and very thought provoking. I have to ask myself how much of this is actually taking place today.

Welcome to the age of political intrigue, intellectual espionage and cyber warfare.

What took me so long to find this author?

Let me say first that I'm a big fan of Tom Rosenstiel's other work. I wanted to love this one too. I loved the premise of the story with the newly selected president dying shortly after he takes office and I enjoyed the whole storyline. The part that was a bit too much were the long political diatribes in between some excellent dialogue. Overall, a good book but his others are better.

Although The Days To Come was not the novel I expected to read, it was an entertaining and astute look at politics as it sometimes exists today. Sad to say, corruption and laziness are hallmarks. So to see Rena and Brooks go after those stealing from the US, from those spying on the US, made for a satisfying read. The Upton character was a surprise. Hopefully Americans will start caring more about money invested in its programs.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.