“You picked the game, you play it.” — Sarah Ridgeway in “Deep Fake”
When it comes to the world of espionage thrillers, you don’t often see writers of successful series set aside a popular protagonist to write a stand-alone novel.
Connecting with thriller writers on social media has afforded me the opportunity to discover some wonderful books over the years.
I’ve had the pleasure of writing pre-release reviews for Ward Larsen’s three most recent David Slaton thrillers — "Assassin's Revenge," "Assassin’s Strike," and "Assassin’s Edge."
The Slaton series is terrific. If you are a fan of espionage thrillers, I would recommend that you add them to your reading list. They are a lot of fun (a new Slaton novel will be published later in 2023) and have quickly become favorites in recent years.
Larsen’s newest thriller is titled “Deep Fake.” It is a stand-alone thriller that is an intriguing combination of a “suburban thriller” and a “political thriller.”
Imagine, if you will, a collaboration between Harlan Coben and the late Robert Ludlum. That mashup gives you a clue as to the intrigue found in the pages of “Deep Fake.”
“Deep Fake” is a multi-threaded novel that centers around Sarah Ridgeway, a freelance editor whose husband Bryce is a first-term congressman from Virginia’s tenth district.
The pair met during college at Princeton and have a teenage daughter named Alyssa. As is the case with any good suburban thriller, the family seems like the epitome of domesticated Virginia bliss at the beginning of “Deep Fake.”
Bryce Ridgeway’s military service (he’s a former Army Ranger) and “Hollywood-level” charisma have made him a rising star in the Republican Party.
Ridgeway’s star status catapults to new heights when he attends a fundraiser at the Watergate Hotel for one of his party’s presidential candidates (one of 19 hopefuls on the slate for the GOP’s presidential primary season).
The seemingly innocuous event finds Ridgeway thwarting a terrorist attack. Videos of his heroics go viral. Party leaders are giddy at the prospect of capitalizing on the congressman’s newfound popularity — and they think they might have found a winning candidate for the upcoming presidential election.
As the days and weeks progress — and as Congressman Ridgeway is thrust into the national spotlight — his wife becomes concerned that something is “off” about her husband.
Is something truly wrong with Bryce? Or has the stress of recent events left Sarah Ridgeway unnecessarily suspicious?
What ensues is a suspenseful tale that recalls fictional tomes like Harlan Coben’s “Tell No One” and theatrical thrillers like Kevin Costner’s “No Way Out.”
Larsen knows how to craft a thriller. His writing is crisp and he is adept at keeping the pages turning. He also manages to toss in a number of terrific plot twists for good measure.
Among many strong points in “Deep Fake,” I appreciated how Larsen managed to include an assisted-living facility in the story’s narrative.
Bryce Ridgeway’s father Walter (who had served as an ambassador to Austria and Czechoslovakia during his professional career) lives in an assisted living facility (specializing in memory care) called Autumn Living (due to a stroke suffered a few years prior to the events in the story that led to the degradation of his mental faculties).
We had to move my father into assisted living last year (where he lived out the remaining months of his life) and the details Larsen includes in “Deep Fake” rang true to our experiences with my dad.
I also enjoyed supporting characters like Claire Hall (Sarah’s best friend and the developer of a surveillance tool called EPIC) and FBI Special Agent Troy Burke (a grizzled law enforcement veteran who is investigating the terrorist attack).
Larsen has said that he wrote “Deep Fake” to explore the “superficial nature of Internet fame and how human nature is increasingly affected by technology.”
Those factors are certainly on display in this novel. While it might have been tempting to write a treatise on the divisive politics of the moment, Larsen instead focuses on this simple question: “How well do we really know our leaders?”
In addition to writing, Larsen (an Air Force veteran) is also a commercial airline pilot. This 2022 interview with David Temple on TheThrillerZone podcast offers insight into Larsen’s writing process and novels:
I had a great time reading “Deep Fake.” It is a fresh, inventive, and gripping thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end.
Order your copy of “Deep Fake” here.
If you'd like to learn more about "Deep Fake" and the novels of Ward Larsen, visit his website at www.wardlarsen.com.
Related posts on Ward Larsen:
