Tapper set "All the Demons Are Here" mostly in 1970s Montana, which inspired nostalgia in me. There were mentions of Evel Knievel, the death of Elvis, the energy crisis, Bigfoot and more, all of which triggered memories for me. The history seemed to have been impeccably researched, down to Congressman Pat Williams losing his primary in Montana. I also enjoyed the journalistic thread of the book, in which the protagonist's sister gets a job at a tabloid paper and is frustrated by the excesses even as she relishes the opportunities to be read. I found it a good pageturner and engaging read.

This is my 1st novel by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and it won't be my last.
Set in the 70's where the references to pop culture brought back my youth it was enjoyable to look back at Elvis, Evel Knievel, etc. The author included historical events and people we are familiar with into the story.
This is the third book in the Charlie & Margaret Marder mystery series. The story focuses on Ike and Lucy , the children of Senator Charlie and Margaret Marder, who are grown up and in trouble. After making some bad choices their lives become surrounded by danger not only for themselves but for their parents as well.
You don't have to have read the first two books in the series in order to enjoy "All The Demons Are Here" however you will want to.
A fantastic and engrossing thriller!

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for an arc of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

In 2018, I reviewed Jake Tapper’s book The Hellfire Club, and was introduced to Charlie Marder, a young Congressman (thanks to his father’s influence when a seat became vacant). He and his wife Margaret, a zoologist, have a ton of interesting experiences in and around Washington, D.C., and I loved the way the issues and people of the time were interwoven into the plot.

2021’s The Devil May Dance brought back the couple, this time involved with famous 50s characters (think Rat Pack, Sinatra, etc.) and like The Hellfire Club, I noted in my review that this one is also “ very Mad Men-ish, with lots of cocktails, smoking, and the rampant racism and sexism that were so accepted at the time. “ One of my favorite lines: “Amoral, vacuous, meaningless, exploitative–sure. And? Was this virility not what America embraced?”

Both books were fun and interesting, filled with Tapper’s voluminous research and meticulous attention to detail. So I was super happy to receive a copy of the third novel featuring Charlie Marder (and his family), All The Demons Are Here, from Little, Brown & Company and NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review. This time, the story takes place in the late 1970s, and includes Charlie and Margaret’s grown children, Ike and Lucy. Ike is a Marine who has gone AWOL following a mission that went horribly wrong and is in Montana working for Evel Knievel, while Lucy is a star reporter for a D.C. tabloid owned by a rich British family…once again art imitating life, or a roman a clef…either way, it’s lots of fun watching the events unfold. As I have come to expect from Tapper, this one has an interesting plot, fully developed characters, and is filled with incredibly detailed research. Aside from wondering where he finds the time to write, I continue to be impressed with his novels. This is again four stars, rounded down from five, which may be unfair…but the news is bringing me down these days. Never mind–five stars!

What an unusual and awesome novel! It revolves around Lucy, a reporter and brother Ike who is a veteran and still suffers some because of the horrors he witnessed. When Lucy lands a job with The Sentinel, she begins investigating a serial killer on the loose who leaves his female victims in unusual positions and there are few clues. Ike begins working for Evel Knievel and some of those scenes evoke humor that had me laughing out loud! There are many great cultural references from the 70's that those of us from that decade will remember fondly (Elvis, Reagan, Nixon, Manson--maybe not fondly--and Woodward and Bernstein)! Fast-paced and riveting, this novel keeps you turning pages like crazy until you discover the true "demon" and breathe a sigh of relief!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC

With Jake Tapper's new novel, I enjoyed a trip down memory lane to 1977 when I had just returned from living overseas. My antenna was up on all the politics surrounding the Vietnam War, Nixon, and the fallout for that motley crew. This is a good story with real-life players and events sprinkled with fictional characters. I especially loved the name-dropping of the good, the bad, and the ugly!

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book to be published on July 11, 2023.

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All the Demons Are Here is the third thriller by Jake Tapper. Coming July 11, 2023, Little Brown and Company provided an early galley for review.

Continuing his series, Tapper gives readers a new decade and a new generation of the Marder family. The story flips back and forth between Ike and Lucy during the mid-70's, and once again weaves in real-life people and events with his fictional ones. It is a style that works for the author. If the series continues, I expect the fourth volume to take place in the 80's with more from Ike and Lucy.

Tapper does take a liberty or two with his history, just as he did with his previous two novels in the series. He does note that he made up a Led Zeppelin song for the book's title, just as he did with a song for the title of his last book The Devil May Dance. However, I caught several anachronistic errors this time - Ike citing a 1980's Uncanny X-Men annual in chapter seven which is set three years prior or Lucy hearing a Rolling Stones' song "Shattered" in chapter eight which would not have been recorded until late '77 and released as a single until '78. A true comic book and music nerd like me would have caught these two.

Still, this was a quick and enjoyable read. It is perfect for a beach read for the summer.

Jake Tapper, man of many talents (including cartooning), has created yet another thrilling historical political thriller, this time moving from the 1950s to the 1970s, and specifically 1977, the year when Star Wars debuted, Evel Knievel was the daredevil motorcycle king, Son of Sam terrorized Boston, New York City had a massive blackout, the first personal computers went on sale, and Elvis died. Tapper’s previous adventurous protagonists, Congressman Charlie Marder (later elected a senator between books) and his feisty zoologist wife, Margaret, turn the action over to their now adult children, Ike and Lucy.

Ike skipped college, joined the Marines, slipped away, and is now on Evel Knievel’s crew in dusty Montana. Lucy, Yale graduate and journalist, has tracked baby brother down in time to see him in a bar fight with an Idaho Nazi. She has a job with a DC startup, more of a tabloid than a Washington Post, with a “Succession” like family at the helm.

The novel follows Ike and Lucy in their separate journeys: Ike escaping Aryan Nation thugs while reliving the post-traumatic stress of a Marine mission gone wrong; and Lucy investigating a possible serial killer while her bosses sensationalize the facts. Both of them are trying to redeem themselves from mounting circumstances that seem to make their life choices more difficult instead of less so.

I like to think that Jake Tapper is in a special class like fellow contemporary thriller novelists James Comey (newbie writer and former FBI director) and Stacey Abrams (candidate for Georgia governor) — people who really know the inside workings of real government and media and make their novels reality-based but still incredibly descriptive page turners. Tapper’s novels contain the ultimate celebrity name-dropping references (Joe McCarthy, Frank Sinatra, JFK in the previous 50s books) and here we have Evel Knievel, Jackie O, George Bush, Farrah Fawcett, Truman Capote, Roy Cohn, and many more in Studio 54, which makes the story so fun, especially the Lucy footnotes about the real DC scandals of the day, notorious criminals or just bizarre facts (killer bees! Manson assassins!)

Tapper was only 8 years old in 1977, but you’d think that he lived during that particular year as an adult news junkie. Research for this book must have been amazingly intense! Tapper’s chapter by chapter acknowledgments are also a must-read.The author must have immersed himself so much in 1977 lore that I imagine him writing the book on an early Commodore or Apple II computer wearing a fringed jacket with black plaid pants then jumping into a Ford Thunderbird to have quiche and fondue at his publisher’s party with molten chocolate cake.

The siblings’ separate stories ratchet up a lot of personal tension, but overall this seemed less a domestic political thriller than an homage to the complicated events of 1977. I liked the previous two books a bit more — Charlie and Margaret were always a team (on “capers” as Ike recalls), and Ike and Lucy have long narratives before they are together.

4.5 stars — Tapper has an incredible talent for re-creating the near past and he should bring back Lucy and Ike together from the start of the book.

Thank you to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for a free advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): NO Lots of ice-blue eyes and even a pair of violet ones, but no green eyes.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO Nature has a presence when Ike is hidden in the disparate camps of disaffected vets who are trying not to die when winter arrives and when a hurricane is competing with a mob headed to an island.

Hard to put down once you start reading so give yourself plenty of time. Love the real people interspersed with the fictional. Jake Tapper is a great storyteller. This is the third in a series but can be read as a stand-alone. That said, I encourage you to read the first two books of the Marder family.