Book Review: Blind Trust

Title	Blind Trust
Author	Barbara Boxer
Rating
Tags	novel, thriller, senators, women, politics
	This is the second novel by Barbara Boxer, who is in real life a U.S. Senator. The main character in the novel is also a Senator, Ellen Fischer Lind. As the novel begins it is the new year and Lind is enjoying the holiday with her husband, Ben, who has just retired from Congress. While in Congress, like most, he put his money in a blind trust, meaning he did not know in what companies the money was invested, so that ethical conflicts will not arise while serving the public. News breaks that Lind, and so the Senator, have benefited greatly by investments in stocks of energy companies with whom the Senator has done battle over the environment. This is viewed as a betrayal by many of her supporters. The timing is suspicious, as the Senator is about to hold confirmation hearings on the appointment of an old enemy of hers to be the Secretary of Homeland Security. The Vice President wants him and has been working on security issues for the past six years. Lind weathers one storm only to have another come at her. Can she prove her political enemies are behind them? Can she prevent the executive branch from from exercising power the Constitution never meant it to have? The writing style started out rather trite... too many cliches and unhandy descriptions. It either got better or I got better at ignoring it. The plot is ok. Characterization is good, I particularly liked the Senator's chief of staff, Darelle Simba. It was also interesting that her power-grabbing VP character does what he does from genuine love of country... that seems to be the consensus on Dick Cheney, as well, on whom Boxer's VP candidate is obviously loosely-based. Not a great book, but a good one, and worth reading to see what Boxer has to say about Washington.
Publication	Chronicle Books (2009), Hardcover, 368 pages
Publication date	2009
ISBN	0811864278 / 9780811864275

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