True Believers

True Believers: A Novel
Kurt Andersen
Random House (July 10, 2012), 449 pages
Kindle Edition $9.99, Amazon Hardcover $22.89, Amazon Paperback  $12.97

True Believers is narrated by Karen, an accomplished attorney at age 65. The plot moves back and forth between the present day, where Karen is writing a memoir, and her past. The story of her past starts in her childhood and moves through her first two years of college. She describes how she and her friends were big James Bond fans (the books and the movies) and how in high school in the 1960’s they played James Bond adventure games of their own invention. Eventually they abandoned those games, but that background created the foundation for a political conspiracy that was national in its scope. We read a lot about the conspiracy before the narrator reveals exactly what is being planned. The book pivots on how that conspiracy plays out.

Andersen (who you may know from Studio 360 on NPR) does a passable job of presenting the story in a female voice. If you lived through the 1960’s, or if you didn’t, but are interested in the era, this book is likely to engage you.