Brian Griffith's Reviews > Peril

Though the events described are dramatic, I found the writing quite wooden. Woodward and Costa give news report after news report, sticking to the facts, so the book is like a big pile of newspaper articles. Some eyewitness accounts capture Trump’s almost unconditional obsession with his own status, and the practical threats that posed to the system of checks and balances. Other accounts focus on Joe Biden’s responses, with Biden mostly presented as a kind of Honest Abe, riding to the rescue with a touch of self-depreciating humility. It’s not biography, with well-rounded pictures of complex characters, but it does convey the horror of moments on the verge of system collapse.