In this sly satire on the presidency, post-Trump, authors Falter and Harvey have created a compelling and only mildly prurient pleasantry that is equal parts French farce and black comedy. Think Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe meet Irma la Douce and A Flea in Her Ear. The threat of nuclear annihilation this time, however, simply hovers in the background of a swiftly moving story about a randy and forgetful U. S. President, his resourceful but unlucky special agent, and a coterie of characters who wouldn’t be out of place in an Elmore Leonard hodgepodge.
Charley is the agent who just happens to be a transgender man engaged to a former dominatrix now in training with the F.B.I. Charley’s primary responsibility is procuring attractive females to actively engage with the leader of the free world. He hates his current assignment but loves the agency. So he soldiers on haplessly until the President decides Charley’s fiancé should be his next date. Charley’s troubles begin to expand exponentially when his criminally inclined former homosexual lover turns up, one of his female conscripts turns the President down, and the oafish Commander In Chief either misplaces the nuclear Gold Codes or has them swiped by one of his bedmates.
Throughout this frequently charming concoction, the plot is crafty, the dialogue is conversational, the characters are likable, and while sexual content is continual, it avoids an overindulgence in explicitness—which is not to say there isn’t a good bit of slap and tickle here and there. If your tastes run to R-rated fun, chances are you’ll get a good giggle or two from this saucy POTUS spoof.
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