Access To Power

Every five years or so, it seems a new writer comes along and gives the genre a big push. Scott Turow and John Grisham turned the legal thriller upside down. James Ellroy drove the historical epic to the heights of literature. James Lee Burke breathed new life into the detective story. These are all well-known names. And Robert Ellis deserves to be set right beside them.Access to Power is a political thriller unlike any I've ever read before. As one murder begets another, Ellis peels off layers of corruption in bits and pieces. The result is a haunting view of the world we live in. Politics as crime performed in real time from the inside out.The novel unfolds in a straightforward manner. I found Ellis's writing to be colorful, if not poetic at times. Here's a brief sample, a short description of a minor character: "Zain's glasses were so thick, Frank had never been able to tell what color his eyes were. Fingerprint gray maybe, with a smudge of blue."This kind of storytelling is like word candy. The track the story races down is fast and furious. And Access to Power is loaded with plenty of juice for the ride.

I really dug this book. As Frank Miles runs a senate campaign and investigates his best friend's murder, George Raymond haunts Washington DC trying to cover his tracks and multiple murders. But Raymond has a few hangups, as I guess most anyone who kills people for a living would. He has this thing for self-help tapes and listens to them in his car. George Raymond is an unbelievably great character and redefines bad guys for all time. I'll never forget this incredible person. While he scared the blank out of me, there's a hint of humor in the guy. At times I thought I could hear the author laughing in the background. Robert Ellis's Access to Power would make a great movie. I can't believe I found this book.

Damn that Robert Ellis! I read Access to Power on the recommendation of a friend, and I couldn't put the book down until I finished it. Which is great, except that it kept me up until 4 o'clock on a Monday morning, which made me useless for work that day. Access to Power is the best thriller I've read since the heyday of Robert Ludlum. The novel shows a real sophistication about Washington politics, and it's a first-rate murder mystery besides. Ellis writes in short, compelling chapters that make the book really easy to read -- and almost impossible to stop reading! This is a great book for a vacation or a long trip. If you like mysteries, it will hook you right from the start, and you'll enjoy a great roller-coast ride as the plot winds along to the surprise ending. A great beach book!

Everyone I know has been reading this and now I know why. First let me say I read this suspenseful thriller almost without stopping: the last 200 pages straight out. As each chapter ended I tried to get up and do something else but the book kept tugging me back.Second, it's the most dead on (in every way, especially as bodies stack up) account of the political media business ever done. I work in it. I know. Ellis, who's worked in it too, may have invented a new genre. Forget those other political books written by day-old journalists and wannabes. This is the real deal written by the real guy. The suspense is generated as much by how smart things are done in the novel, not just by what's done. And the ending, complete with mayhem, has enough twists to keep you guessing all the way.The fastest page-turner you'll read this year...and you may just learn a thing or two about the way things work, which ain't all bad--that is, depending on how you look at it. Buy this one.

What Grisham is to law, Ellis is to politicsAs a political professional, I can tell you, it is hard to find a newscast or an article, much less a novel, that accurately portrays what it is like to be inside of a high-pressure campaign.Robert Ellis' book does that and more.It is page turning thriller that seems to be ripped from the most recent tawdry scandals of the Beltway.Scummy candidates, immoral media types, souless aides...it's all here. Almost as much fun as discovering the resolve is seeing if you can guess which real life politicians his characters are based on.Mr. Ellis is an insider. And it shows.Access to Power is the best plane, beach, weekend read you'll have this year.