Hope Rides Again

1.
What a bunch of malarkey.
     That had been my response when I d seen Murder on the Amtrak Express on the paperback rack at the airport. Some two-bit hack had written a potboiler starring yours truly, Joe Biden. Not only that, but the money-grubbing publisher had the gall to slap my mug on the cover. There I was, grimacing behind the wheel of a silver Pontiac Firebird Trans Am a car I d never driven in my life. Now, six chapters in, my initial assessment of its literary merit was unchanged. Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. 
     I might as well have flushed my fifteen bucks down the crapper.
     My cab screeched to a halt, sending the book tumbling from my hands. The cabbie a dead ringer for Bears legend Mike Ditka laid on the horn. A half dozen pedestrians dashed in front of us, tying up four lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic on Lake Shore Drive.
     Traffic had been stop-and-go since Midway. What should have been a twenty-minute drive into Chicago had already taken double that.
      Is there another route?
     Ditka shook his head. St. Paddy s Day weekend. Holiday s tomorrow, but the parade s today. Your friend Obama picked da wrong morning for his ecumenical forum, if you ask me.
      Economics, I said. It s a global economics forum.
      Ditka glared at me in the rearview mirror. I could tell he wanted to say something smart, but he was having a rough time getting the old hamster to spin the wheel. A woman in a tight pair of green hot pants raced to catch up to her friends, feather boa in tow. My driver redirected his attention accordingly.
     I should have expected the zaniness. St. Patrick s Day was the second biggest day on the Irish American

Andrew Shaffer is the New York Times best-selling author of Quirk s Obama/Biden Mystery series, the satirical thriller The Day of the Donald: Trump Trumps America, and the Goodreads Choice semifinalist Fifty Shames of Earl Grey: A Parody, among other humorous fiction and nonfiction books for HarperCollins and Penguin Random House. He lives in Kentucky with his wife, the author Tiffany Reisz.

A 2019 Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist

Enjoyably ludicrous. Politico

If you're pining for the previous administration and craving an escapist summer read, Andrew Shaffer has the cure for what ails you. Los Angeles Times

This spirited, cheeky tale is everything you want from the Obama Biden Mystery series. B&N Reads

Sequels are often notoriously disappointing. How lucky, then, that Hope Rides Again isn't. The Anniston Star

If you're looking for something enjoyable and slightly out there, this is definitely a book to try. Yakima Herald-Republic

Like its predecessor...[Hope Rides Again] is ridiculously insane and inventive. BookTrib

Many of the politically aware may soon have nostalgic fondness for humor like this. LEO Weekly

"The game is afoot for Joe and Barry. This is fun, escapist fiction with enough details...to stay grounded in a kind of reality." Booklist

"Once again, Shaffer convincingly portrays his unusual leads as action heroes." Publishers Weekly

Another action-packed mystery rife with close calls. Shelf Awareness for Readers

Praise for Hope Never Dies:
An Official Summer Read of Publishers Weekly and The Interrobang 
A 2018 Goodreads Choice Award Finalist

[Hope Never Dies is] a roughly 300-page work of political fanfiction, an escapist fantasy that will likely appeal to liberals pining for the previous administration, longing for the Obama-Biden team to emerge from political retirement as action heroes. But it s also at times a surprisingly earnest story about estranged friends who are reunited under strange circumstances. Alexandra Alter, New York Times

It s a giddy premise, a bit of Resistance wish-fulfillment for those who d like to see Biden and Obama trading one-liners and cracking skulls. New Yorker

While readers are sure to get a kick out of the codenames and inside jokes used playfully throughout, Hope Never Dies is an