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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What Belinda Oaten should have done ....., 6 Oct 2006
Imagine a rewrite of the same author's "House of Cards." Could it be that this is the same tale again, except that instead of the central character being the scintillating villain Francis Urquhart, magnificently brought to life by Ian Richardson for the TV series, this time the central character is Elizabeth Urquhart as played by Diane Fletcher ?
You might very well think that: I couldn't possibly comment.
The central character and anti-heroine is called Virginia (Ginny) Edge who at the start of the book is the quiet and unassuming stay-at-home wife of a young and ambitious MP.
At the start of "First Lady", the leader of the opposition suffers a serious stroke and it is soon clear that he will not recover. At a gathering of the partners of shadow cabinet members, Ginny Edge accidentally overhears two of the other wives discussing the forthcoming leadership election - and her world comes crashing down around her when one of them casually throws in at the end of the conversation the news that Ginny's husband can be discounted because he is too preoccupied with the affair he is having with a researcher.
Ginny decides to stop being a dormouse and become a player - and instead of taking revenge on her husband for cheating on her, that means making him Prime Minister. The book is the story of her tricks and manouvers towards this aim. Unlike Francis Urquhart she is an anti-heroine rather than a villain, because although she does some pretty unethical things her male and female opponents, both in her own and the governing party, are even worse.
Most of the story is dominated by a Leadership election so nasty and extraordinary that it would have made the book completely implausible had it not been for the real events in the year the book came out around the leadership of the Liberal Democrats. By comparison with real events from the defenestration of the Lib/Dem leader to the equally nasty leadership election which followed, the book seems less fantastic than might otherwise have been the case. The remainder of the book is taken up by a snap general election in which the funding of political parties is a major issue. This part of the plot too might have seemed far fetched had not the real events of 2006, culminating in the arrests of the PM's fundraiser Lord Levy and a senior Downing Street official, been equally incredible.
If the words "Conservative" "Lib/Dem" or "Labour" appear anywhere in the book I did not spot them: Michael Dobbs appears to have written "First Lady" in such a way as to allow the reader to imagine whichever party he or she supports to be the one whose characters are more sympathetic.
Not quite the groundbreaking work that his original "House of Cards" was, but still quite entertaining: this book is a good way to liven up a dull evening.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not up to prior standards, 12 Nov 2006
This was a disappointment despite being well-written and having spots of good dry humour.
In an interesting effort, Dobbs doesn't label either of the political parties with names - it's either the government or the opposition. The question becomes whether a hurt, but ultimately scheming wife, can help her husband into Number 10.
I've never seen so many unsavoury characters in one book (the counter view, of course, is that this is a political story so the expectations shouldn't be too high!).
There were also far too many casualties of sabotage or subterfuge - while I accept that a lot of dirty practices occur, there were just too many instances here to help move the story along. Part of the problem, therefore, was that the reader isn't inclined to warm to any of the characters. The former Sudanese refugee looked like a candidate for a while, but I felt decreasing sympathy for her and she became irrelevant in the greater scheme of things anyway.
The book also ended far too suddenly for my liking - true that the lead character either becomes PM or doesn't, but I really felt the last 30 pages or so just wrapped things up too quickly. I have read two of Dobbs' novels before and was very impressed; this, however, didn't meet the standard I know he is capable of. A four star rating is perhaps too generous, but in the absence of a 7 out of 10 choice, I have given Dobbs the benefit of the doubt.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A real 'don'tputitdown' great book, his best yet., 26 Jan 2007
I had always hoped that British politics was a little more inspiring than the stuff we get in Canada - and now I know it is, even if for all the wrong reasons. Dobbs has the ability to make it all come to life and left me laughing at the follies and shouting at the abuses in the same breath. The heroine Ginny is magnificent, her husband Dom is a waste of space (and she knows it) while the other characters seem so much like the politicians we know in real life. And Dobbs has got the politics of the war in Iraq so right - surely Bush and Blair are going to regret not reading this book three years ago. First Lady is fun, but with a lot of serious points to make in the margins of what is an excellent read. I hope there will be a sequel.
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