Thomas is attending a campaign rally for Maddox which is being held at a local high school when a bomb explodes. He is pinned to the wall by a metal rod which has penetrated his abdomen. Thomas loses a significant amount of blood but manages to survive.

Thomas’s wife is scheduled at the last minute to accompany her candidate on a campaign trip to several key areas in the state. Kalpesh Gupta, one of Sheffield’s aides has become ill and cannot make the trip so Kathy is to substitute for him. Thomas accompanies his wife to the air strip from which the small twin engine plane is to depart. Thomas promises to watch for the plane from a position near the lighthouse at Cape Disappointment and Kathy promises to have the pilot tip his wings as they approach the Cape. All goes as planned except after the pilot tips the wings the plane begins a nosedive into the murky water below. Unwittingly Thomas has  recorded on his digital camera the crash of the small plane.

The National Transportation Safety Board investigates the crash. Thomas is in a stupor. He keeps reliving his accident in the gymnasium and regretting not having been more sympathetic to his wife’s wishes and needs. He imagines that he sees Kathy in other cars, in public places. He cannot believe she is dead even though he saw the plane go down himself.

His friend, Elmer (Snake) Slezak does his best to comfort him as does Snake’s identical twin Bert. Bert is both a godsend and a curse. He gives Thomas hope his wife is still alive while dredging up all manner of conspiracy theories  which gives rise to the very real possibility that Bert is crazy.

Most political thrillers rely heavily on political backstabbing at various levels of government. To keep all the mini plots separate is a feat in itself. Emerson manages to maintain a simple main plot while neatly incorporating all the adjacent information in an orderly manner. What results is a story that is clear concise and easy to follow.

One of the major scenes in the novel is the campaign rally at the high school gymnasium. The novel opens with this scene. Throughout the book Thomas revisit’s the scene in his head each time eliciting more detail about the event. Thomas’s personality as well as details pertinent to the mystery evolve with each retelling.

The plane crash has a devastating effect on Thomas as one might expect. As he examines his relationship with his wife we learn much about the man as he does himself. This adds an interesting dimension to the novel. It is easy to feel empathetic toward the man who is tortured on many levels.

His friends Snake and Bert add some comic relief to an otherwise grim scenario. Bert is admittedly  more than a little crazy, but he is also brilliant and some of his craziness is actually intelligence in disguise. Snake is less enigmatic but probably no less wise. With this cast of characters and intriguing plot, Cape Disappointment, though purportedly a real place, represents much more than a physical location in an outstanding novel that deserves to be termed something more significant than a thriller.

--Andy Plonka