The most important thing for me, when it comes to thrillers, is to have opening chapters that will capture me and then, I HAVE to read it as soon as possible.

This is the case here. This book goes at lightning speed and I had to pace myself or I would have read it all in one sitting (I do have other responsibilities LOL).

My thoughts were - right is right, but somehow, this author brought me to a place where I wasn't even clear on how I thought the main characters should be.

Kept saying "no, I can't believe that".

Author knows how to peak suspense.

The author of the thriller series starring legendary assassin David Slaton, now brings fans Deep Fake, with echoes of The Manchurian Candidate. It stars ex-Army Ranger Bryce Ridgeway and his wife Sarah..

Bryce has left the army, and is a junior congressman. He stops a terrorist attack at a fundraiser, becomes a national hero - and his party picks him to enter the presidential primaries.

Bryce is forgetful and occasionally acts oddly - PTSD? Sarah is desperate to understand and has help from her friend, an expert in data mining and cybersecurity.

Along with events in the US, readers follow fast-paced action in Russia. Deep Fake is a gripping read, not to be missed!

In a power-hungry world, people will stop at nothing to rise to the top, nothing. Ward Larsen’s Deep Fake is a gripping and unique tale of deception, as the fate of the free world hangs in the balance.

Bryce Ridgeway has served his country honorably and faithfully, serving countless years in the Army’s pride and proud Ranger battalions. The path for him changes as a roadside bomb in Mali derails his career as it prevents him from performing at the highest possible level. In keeping with his need to continue to serve the United States of America, Bryce immediately makes an impact as a congressman from the state of Virginia.

Sarah Ridgeway, dedicated wife of Bryce, is always willing to sacrifice to support her husband, but things turn awkward when one of his morning runs ends with a seemingly inconsequential cut on his leg. While attending a major party event at a local hotel later, Bryce takes one of the most heroic actions any person could, as he independently stops a terrorist attack of epic proportions. With the terrorist attack stopped, and his life literally hanging on the edge, Bryce and the party committee capitalize quickly by introducing him as the newest presidential candidate.

His quick rise to stardom happens all too quickly, as Sarah Ridgeway and her friend Dr. Claire Hall start to see minor changes in Bryce’s demeanor. If they don’t utilize some of the most high-tech cybersecurity measures available in the world and press the inconsistencies that Bryce has presented, the world may be in trouble. If they just write it off the United States of America could be on the cusp of the largest conspiracy coverup to ever walk the earth.
Ward Larsen has been producing some high-quality books with ease it seems, but this is a change from his main protagonist David Slaton. Deep Fake is an exhilarating and adventurous story. Larsen lures you in with emotion and sense of validation due to service, then slowly destroys your thought process. He lines up a clear-cut response for the reader and methodically blows it away through misdirection. The characters are not superhuman and overly powerful, they are dealt a hand that they are forced to play with and works effortlessly. I’ve been a Larsen fan for years now and this is just one more reason to love his writing.

I wanted to enjoy this as I am a huge aficionado of politics and the way they show up in our lives, especially in the context of a thriller like this. I unfortunately found some of the language around the terrorists to be problematic, *even* after adjusting my lens/viewpoint for time period and context. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free advance copy.

For full transparency, I DNF’d this book at 15%. For a few different reasons, it just wasn’t for me. I’ve never really tried a political thriller so I decided to take the leap, but this one didn’t do it for me. The writing was a little bland and was telling rather than showing. Additionally, I didn’t like some of the descriptions and dialogue surrounding the “terrorists”, it felt stereotypical and harmful. It wasn’t for me, but that doesn’t mean others won’t like it. I tried to push forward to get some more context but I just had to call it. Thank you NetGalley for a complimentary e-text in exchange for an honest review.

As a Cold War stories aficionado, I was very excited to get the chance to read this ARC. Suffice it to say, this is one of the better espionage stories out there! I could not tear myself away and the ending was well worth it!

Deep Fake is a mind-churning jaw-dropping mixture of Cold War era thrillers and cutthroat political narratives that serve as meaningful and thoughtful commentaries about the world we find ourselves in today. Ward Larsen stretches out to a different sort of thriller than his David Slaton action-packed adventures and proves that he has both the emotional and intellectual intelligence to tackle different sub genres within the thrillerverse.
When a junior congressman, Bryce Ridgeway, puts his life at risk to stop a suicide bomber, he’s immediately regaled as a public hero and jettisoned off to the political races for a shot at the presidency. The moments of relief and celebration for the Ridgeway family start falling apart when Sarah Ridgeway notices peculiarities in her husband’s demeanor. She reaches out to a friend, a research scientist, whose groundbreaking work opens the door for unsettling revelations about an audaciously horrific conspiracy. Is the man in the spotlight truly her husband?
There’s a delicate balance between narratives that are wonderfully delightful but ridiculously impossible and those that seem eerily probable. Ward Larsen walks the pitch perfect line in a scary armament of modern technology that’s not only in use today but the implications of which are still not feared widely by society at large. Larsen’s grasp on up-and-coming technology is commendable and perhaps best describes the threat posed by unregulated technology in both politics and espionage when those who are relentless in their pursuit of a bold idea get their hands on something so powerful and damaging to a world that basically runs on 0’s and 1’s.
While grappling with the scary modern-day voodoo that is technology, Larsen doesn’t lose sight of the effects of such threats on the very human characters that are first and foremost in the narrative. Sarah’s dilemma of discovering the dark side about her “husband” feels so genuine that it crosses over into unsettling territory even for a reader who knows this isn’t actually happening. Her unofficial investigation with her best friend leads her down a turmoil path that rivets and twists like a formula-one race track. You don’t get a moment of breather as Ward Larsen takes you on a roller coaster of a thriller.
Deep Fake is as good as it gets for smart political thrillers that keep you engrossed in the pages and offer a fresh narrative and perspective. There’s a great aerial combat sequence in the climax that stands out as one of the most intense finales I have read so far. Leave it to Ward Larsen to deliver nail-biting action on both the ground and in the air.

Full review on https://www.bestthrillerbooks.com/kashif-hussain

The love child of the film The Manchurian Candidate and Nelson DeMille’s novel The Charm School, Deep Fake is a psychological thriller born of classic espionage infiltration operations from the cold war era. Ward Larsen delivers a fabulous novel featuring a blisteringly fast pace, strong female characters, invasive government technology, and an enduring covert operation audaciously attempting to rewrite the established world order. It’s fantastic, edge of your seat, make you sweat stuff that will have you screaming at the characters to move quicker to save the day, save themselves and save the country.

Bryce Ridgeway is an Army Ranger vet who now serves the people of Virginia as their congressman. But his military training has never left him and when he witnesses suspicious behavior by an individual at a Veterans Day political event, he acts fast and stops a terrorist attack from taking out several members of Congress. Hailed as a hero and with video of the incident going viral, Bryce’s life changes instantly and the Republican party seizes his rising star by kicking off a campaign to make him the next President of the United States. But his wife Sarah starts noticing little things that seem off about Bryce. He’s more forgetful than usual, doesn’t recognize a few people right away and in general isn’t acting like his normal self. At first, she thinks it’s a result of the combat trauma he’s experienced. Then she thinks he’s having an affair. But only after enlisting the help of her brilliant tech friend Claire to dig into Bryce’s recent movements does something more diabolical seem to be at play. Now it’s up to Sarah and Claire to uncover the truth and save the nation from unimaginable harm.

As a child of the cold war era, Deep Fake evoked deep nostalgic feelings from growing up in the 80’s during the tension-filled years before the fall of the Iron Curtain. It brought back memories of reading stories in the newspaper about the US and Russia constantly trying to outmaneuver each other. And it reminded me of reading The Charm School, a literary espionage masterpiece that forever hooked me on thrillers. Which all goes to say that if a novel can stir up all these feelings and experiences from years ago, it is nothing short of an expertly crafted thriller that is firing on all cylinders and connecting with readers on a deep level. Grade A stuff from Ward Larsen that should be on every thriller fan’s TBR pile.

I'm very much of two minds here. On the one hand, the premise from which the narrative was derived is intriguing and there's some really good writing in the course of its development; but on the other, the overwhelming complexities inherent in the original premise caused the narrative to make less and less sense as it gathered momentum. So many leaps of faith and suspensions of belief are required to follow it at all that the whole thing eventually starts feeling like one of those television series that completely stops making sense half way through but you finish watching anyway if only out of morbid curiosity as to how it will eventually end.

It's impossible to begin listing those leaps of faith and elements that simply made no sense without completely exposing the plot which would be a grave disservice to the author so I'm not going to do that. It just feels to me that he bit off rather too much in the narrative premise and wasn't sure what to do when he realized he was sking down the expert slope and was on the verge of losing his skis. Maybe the better choice at that point would have been -- not to torture the metaphor unduly -- to return to the top of the hill, get everything back under control, and make a more measured and coherent decent.

Still, Ward Larsen is a fine writer and deserves every benefit of the doubt. As disappointed as I am here, I'm not going to go lower than four stars for a writer of his accomplishment and character..

Deep Fake by Ward Larsen is an engrossing political thriller!

My first time reading anything by this author and I I'm being very honest here I absolutely loved it!
There is something fascinating about political thrillers and this one pulled me in almost immediately and kept me turning the pages till I couldn't hold my eyes open any longer.
The action, suspense, and anticipation kept me coming back for more.
It’s fast paced, action packed and entertaining.
The characters are so well developed and likeable.
And the atmosphere of the book was stellar.
Larsen is an author I'm definitely adding to my TBR list!

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Forge Books,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this eARC!

Difficult story to review without giving spoilers.. The author has created a very good standalone novel featuring a former army officer turned U S Congressman whose behavior changes following a dramatic rescue. His wife, daughter, and chief of staff all notice differences which get more serious as the story progresses. As more facts are reveale, the tension and pace of the story ramp up in a great thriller.