No Way to Treat a First Lady - Christopher Buckley

After a strenuous sex session in the Lincoln Room with Actress/Singer/International Celebrity Babatte Van Anka, the President returns to his wife’s bed and is found there dead the next morning by the Secret Service with the imprint of silver spitoon indented into his forehead. The First Lady, Elisabeth MacMann (known as Lady BethMac), has had a stormy relationship because of her husband's infidelities and was heard rowing with him on the night of his death. She is charged (somewhat improbably) with his murder and hires “Shameless” Boyce Baylor, the most notorious lawyer in America and the man she dumped 25 years earlier to marry Ken MacMann, to defend her in what will certainly become the “Trial of the Millennium”.

Bam! That’s two chapters and 13 pages into the book - no messing around here. There is nothing fancy or clever about the writing style or the dialogue - it is effective, straightforward and to the point. There is nothing sophisticated either about the plot, which after he opening scene is really not much more than an extended court-room drama. No matter how improbable the plot might seem to get and how ludicrous the lengths the lawyers go to (making sure the jury don’t go out to deliberate on a full-moon, having psychologists monitor the body-language of jury, drawing up psychological profiles and background checks and even investigating when the female members menstrual cycles fall), the books reminds us that real-life court cases are no less bizarre. Parallels are clearly drawn between the infamous court cases of recent American history - Clinton/Lewinsky, O J Simpson, delving back even further to JFK, Watergate and other government embarrassments and cover-ups.

The humour arises from the absurdity of the situation rather than any particularly witty writing, although there are some moments that bring a smile to the face. But by and large the attraction of the book is in this tabloid dream scenario and it is delivered with no greater sophistication than a magazine exposé with all the sleazy innuendo and celebrity gossip that comes associated with it. Although there are occasional lapses in taste, there is nothing particularly offensive here. It’s good to see that a writer can satirise so many public institutions and hit so many targets without having to resort to bad taste or over-reliance on the f-word for humour or drama, as so many others seem to think de rigeur nowadays.  

Subtle however it is not. It’s low and vulgar, but you still get a guilty thrill and swept along with the whole media circus that it effectively creates and satirises. All this along with the sheer headlong pace of the book (you could fly through this willingly in an enjoyable couple of hours) means that this is an unputdownable book.