Review: The Cemetery Vote
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 9, 2011
They have a saying in Chicago, "vote early and vote often." Whether voter fraud is a significant issue in the United States is a highly contested issue with no statistics, but frequent allegations. Google "voter fraud statistics" if you're interested. I thought the plot of this book, a conspiracy to fix an election by paying people to vote in place of now-dead, but still registered voters, made for a clever political thriller. The idea isn't overused and seems plausible.Generally, I found the story entertaining and thought it flowed well. However, there was one glaring exception. This was the introduction of some back-story about the childhood of one of the other major secondary characters, ex-policeman Dan Vienna. It is back-story needed to move one of the plot sub threads to conclusion, but involved taking a long tangent in the middle of a scene, disrupting the flow of the story. As done, it also seemed too convenient. Giving us all or most of this back-story throughout the book would have worked better. That way, when needed, it would have seemed more natural and not required disrupting the narrative.The main character, Jace Kingman, is a drug dealer who, in the beginning, is also a user, of both drugs and people. Disliking Jace would be easy except he realizes early in the book that he needs to change, which makes him more sympathetic. He falls into the voter fraud conspiracy without fully realizing he's trading one problem for another until it is too late. Whether Jace can turn his life around, despite the situation he finds himself in, is the crux of the story.**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **