Product Details
First Daughter

First Daughter
By Eric Van Lustbader

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Product Description

Sometimes the weakness we fear most can become our greatest strength . . .
 
Jack McClure has had a troubled life.  His dyslexia always made him feel like an outsider.  He escaped from an abusive home as a teenager and lived by his wits on the streets of Washington D.C.  It wasn’t until he realized that dyslexia gave him the ability to see the world in unique ways that he found success, using this newfound strength to become a top ATF agent.
 
When a terrible accident takes the life of his only daughter, Emma, and his marriage falls apart, Jack blames himself, numbing the pain by submerging himself in work.  Then he receives a call from his old friend Edward Carson.  Carson is just weeks from taking the reins as President of the United States when his daughter, Alli, is kidnapped.  Because Emma McClure was once Alli’s best friend, Carson turns to Jack, the one man he can trust to go to any lengths to find his daughter and bring her home safely.
 
The search for Alli leads Jack on a road toward reconciliation . . . and into the path of a dangerous and calculating man.  Someone whose actions are as cold as they are brilliant.  Whose power and reach are seemingly infinite.
 
Faith, redemption, and political intrigue play off one another as McClure uses his unique abilities to journey into the twisted mind of a stone cold genius who is constantly one step ahead of him.  Jack will soon discover that this man has affected his life and his country in more ways than he could ever imagine.
 

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #432921 in Books
  • Published on: 2008-08-19
  • Released on: 2008-08-19
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 400 pages

Features

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this uneven thriller from bestseller Lustbader (The Bourne Legacy), Alli Carson, the 19-year-old daughter of the U.S. president-elect, moderate Republican Edward Carson, is abducted a month before her father's inauguration to be programmed to do something truly terrible at the inauguration ceremony. ATF agent Jack McClure is chosen to lead the search for Alli, primarily because she was the boarding-school roommate of his now-deceased daughter, Emma. Jack faces many difficulties, chief among them his own severe dyslexia. The unnamed current president, who makes religion the basis for all his decisions, wants to use the search as an excuse for all-out war on his enemies, the First American Secular Revivalists and their secret partners, the E-Two terrorist group. Lustbader does a fine job depicting the search for Alli and reconstructing Jack's past, but the confusing political message will leave many readers wondering what the book was really about. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Jack McClure’s marriage has fallen apart after the death of his college-age daughter. Working for the ATF keeps him going, and when he receives a call from the incoming president of the U.S., Jack is on the case. The President-elect’s daughter, who was a roommate of Jack’s own deceased daughter, has been kidnapped, and the soon-to-be chief executive wants Jack to take charge of the investigation. But it’s unclear if he truly wants Jack to solve the case. If so, why does he seem to be putting people and obstacles in Jack’s path? Jack, who suffers from dyslexia, sees this case as his chance to redeem himself and put his life back on track, and his struggle to succeed keeps the reader involved. Unfortunately, Lustbader, a genre veteran, has never been known as a stylist, and here he has a tendency to stop the narrative to deliver distracting author’s messages on the problems of organized religion. Still, the engaging premise and the straight-ahead action will satisfy the author’s fans. --Jeff Ayers

Review

"Rarely have I read a book that grabs you so fast in the opening scene (and, oh, how it grabs!), then keeps up the pace until the very last page. Goodbye sleep; hello First Daughter."--Jeffery Deaver, New York Times bestselling author of The Sleeping Doll and The Broken Window

“A terrific story, swift-moving and thought-provoking, but told with a depth and tenderness that will last long after you have closed the final page.”—Anne Perry, New York Times Bestselling author of At Some Disputed Barricade

"Action, suspense and politics blended to perfection by a master."—Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series

"I've long been a fan of Eric Van Lustbader, and he's at his heart-pounding best with First Daughter, a timely and frightening political thriller.  If election year politics aren't already exciting enough for you, here are the chills you've been looking for."-- Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of The Keepsake

“From the opening chapter, First Daughter smashes the sound barrier of psychological tension, action and suspense. The story hits Mach 5 and never slows down. I hope we see more of ATF agent Jack McClure. Outstanding!”--Douglas Preston, New York Times bestselling author of Blasphemy

"A seductive, sophisticated, authentic thriller.  Finely conceived—brilliantly executed.  Eric Van Lustbader’s legion of fans will be both pleased and enhanced by this terrific story, terrifically told, by a master who knows how to manipulate the reader in fiendishly exciting ways."—Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author of The Venetian Betrayal

Customer Reviews

A Potentially Good Story Overshadowed By The Author's Personal Agenda3
This story had a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it was never realized.

Although the author could have made this a great novel, he failed to deliver. Instead of focusing on the main plot, Van Lustbader pursued an agenda of anti-religious bigotry. Much of the action is implausible. Some of these are not just the run of the mill farfetched events in a novel, they are too over the top to have any credibility. The editing is also substandard.

The main idea of the story is that ATF agent Jack McClure is recruited by the president-elect to find his recently kidnapped daughter. The McClure character could have been a great one, but was not well developed. Also, the author tried to turn McClure's dyslexia into some sort of mystical super gift that gives him the ability to 'see' things that no one else can in multiple dimensions. This silly plot device was never expanded to the point that it would make any sense.

Mr. Van Lustbader did his best to portray any people of faith as moronic and phony. One example is this: 'But Father Larrigan wasn't full of grace, nor was any priest.' This is just one example of many.

The errors included ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) listed as AFT in at least two places.

There are a lot better action novels out there. I'd suggest anything by Brad Thor, Vince Flynn, or many others before this. I'd recommend skipping this one.

A great plot wasted1
The opening pages have all the indications of a great mass market thriller -- the the President-elect's daughter is about to make a terrorist attack at the inauguration. Just as she's about to open a vial of anthrax, the book flashes back two months to her kidnapping and the selection of Jack McClure, an ATF with dyslexia, to rescue her. Cool.

The book quickly falls flat though, a victim of stilted dialogue, inaccuracies of forensic science, a complete lack of understanding about the ways that DHS, the White House, and the Secret Service work, and a completely weird and unbelievable plot about a war between religious fundamentalists and secular reformer/protest/terroists....something or the other. Frankly, the sections of the book that discuss relgion and secularism are babbling nonsense.

This book should never have made it past the first level of editing, much less the final publishing process. In my experience, if I enjoy a book by an author, I can find something new by looking for other books by the same publisher -- good editors make great authors. I won't be buying anything from Forge Publishing any time soon.

Jack McClure is no Mitch Rabb1
What a disappointment. This book held out so much promise. An assination attempt at the inauguration, carried out by one of the "first daughters".

Here are a few reasons I actively disliked it.

1. The circumstances were implausible. An ATF agent was assigned to be a major player in an investigation that would be handled by the FBI and possibly assisted by the secret service. (If my memory serves, after the Kennedy assination, congress gave the FBI exclusive jurisdiction over head-of-government-branch assinations. This was to prevent the fed vs local squabbles that led to Ruby's killing of Oswald and so many conspiracy theories.)

2. The racist, religous ranting. I understand that it was important to show the soon-to-be-ex president as someone who was hanging on to power with the fervor of a zealot, but the long diatribes were boring and pointless and, even worse, offensive.

3. The insistence that dyslexia is a handicap that causes embarrassment, needs to be kept secret, yet endows the people with it with special powers to observe things in rooms that othes did not notice. This is simply wrong on so many levels!

Skip this one.