Confronting the Presidents: Bill O’Reilly & Martin Dugard

As the cover notes, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard are the authors of 18 No. 1 bestselling books. Mostly the “Killing” series which started with titles such as “Killing Lincoln” and “Killing Jesus” and continued through “Killing the Witches” and “Killing the Killers.”

O’Reilly and Dugard note they are now moving from “Killing” to a “Confronting” series starting with “Confronting the Presidents.”

Given the title, one might expect the book to rate the American presidents from best to worst. As the subtitle suggests – “No Spin Assessments from Washington to Biden” – that’s not really the case.

Instead, the authors review each president through anecdotes, summarized biographies, a touch of home life and a review of policies, controversies, scandals and successes during their respective administrations.

While they don’t weigh the presidents heavily against each other, the authors do place their thumbs on the scale with an assessment that ends almost every chapter. Some assessments are not surprising: “History has not been kind to James Buchanan, and that is fair.” … “Abraham Lincoln was perhaps the greatest president.” Most folks shouldn’t have any argument with these statements.

The assessments get trickier as we get closer to our era.

For example, Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden are combined in the book’s afterword. The argument is sound – their legacies are not complete. Biden is still president and Trump is running for president again. While the majority of the book is written in a singular voice by the two men, they split for their assessments of Trump and Biden. O’Reilly writes his thoughts directly under his name. Dugard does the same.

“Confronting the Presidents” is an easy and informative read. As with the “Killing” series, the authors take detours into rumors and speculation that aren’t always covered in more deeply researched books. “Confronting” is written in the same style as the “Killing” books – history as storytelling, reading like a novel.

No Plan B: Lee Child & Andrew Child

With “No Plan B,” brothers Lee Child and Andrew Child seem to hit their groove as co-writers of the Jack Reacher series.

This is the 27th Reacher book by series creator Lee Child and the third Reacher book penned together by the Childs.

Here, Reacher witnesses a woman hit and killed by a bus. Authorities see the death as a suicide but Reacher knows she was pushed before the killer strolled away with her purse.

While the cops investigate a suicide, Reacher follows the killer. Meanwhile, the authors also follow “an arsonist out for revenge, a foster kid on the run, a cabal of powerful people involved in a secret conspiracy with many moving parts,” as the book blurb notes. “They don’t consider Reacher a threat.”

As long-time Reacher readers know, that assumption is a mistake.

The Childs resolve these diverse characters’ storylines by the conclusion of the book in a satisfying way.

Like the past Lee Child and Andrew Child books, “No Plan B” is written in a terse style compared to the lone Lee Child books. There are fewer looks into the interior thinking behind Reacher’s actions. Reacher continues to express interest in blues music – a trait similar to the Amazon Prime TV “Reacher” series but one that was not part of the character in the Lee Child books.

“No Plan B” seems like a smoother transition into the Childs co-writing team. Given this is their third book together, it could be they have hit their groove or I’m just getting used to the changes.