‘FDR Drive’ by James Comey

Published by Head of Zeus,
5 June 2025.  
ISBN: 978-1-03591048-9 (HB)

FDR Drive sees Nora Carleton return to New York from Connecticut where she’s been working in the private sector.  She has been appointed Deputy United States Attorney for the Southern District and is pleased to be back amongst the people and buildings she knows well.  That said, she’s already aware that the city is going through a difficult time.  Inflammatory forces are at work, influencing peoples’ ideas and behaviours and putting citizens lives in danger.

Sam Buchanan vehemently criticizes those who hold views different from his own.  His opinionated podcast is streamed to his army of eager listeners from a plush studio on Nora’s patch.  Buchanan not only pushes a right-wing agenda, but he also identifies the groups and individuals he deems to be “anti-American”.  When some of those name-checked on Buchanan’s show are injured and, in some cases, found dead, Nora’s boss, Carmen, wants to bring a case against anyone discovered to be inciting violence.  Nora is tasked with overseeing the team who are working with their law enforcement operatives colleagues.  It’s a daunting and dangerous.

The investigation and subsequent legal proceedings are complicated.  Police and FBI are caught in the middle of opposing factions and a rally to “…celebrate global unity…” triggers the attack we have known was coming from page one.  Investigations to find those involved in the carnage are launched as Nora and her team collate evidence to convict Buchanan and others of intending to provoke the actual attack.

FDR Drive is a fascinating fusion of the way legal processes work alongside police investigations to seek justice and convict criminals in a world that has and continues to change rapidly.  It highlights what happens when persuasive rhetoric ignores reality and twists facts to create an untrue narrative. Woven through the gritty central plot is a gentler story involving Nora’s mother and teenage daughter, Teresa and Sophie respectively.  The Carleton family and friends provide a refreshing sense of normality, humanity and empathy as the lawyer grapples with the extremists she prosecutes.

This is the third Nora Carelton thriller and can be read perfectly well as a stand-alone novel.  James Comey tells the story with the authority one might expect from someone who has most certainly been there and done that.  He is also a superb storyteller, and this will delight those who, like me, love legal thrillers.

Thoughtful, intriguing and highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Dot Marshall-Gent

James Comey was born in New York City and attended the College of William and Mary and the University of Chicago Law School. He worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York, prosecuting organised crime figures, and worked on terrorism cases as assistant DA in Virginia. He served as the seventh Director of the FBI from 2013 until 9 May 2017, when he was fired by President Donald Trump. 

Dot Marshall-Gent worked in the emergency services for twenty years first as a police officer, then as a paramedic and finally as a fire control officer before graduating from King’s College, London as a teacher of English in her mid-forties.  She completed a M.A. in Special and Inclusive Education at the Institute of Education, London and now teaches part-time and writes mainly about educational issues.  Dot sings jazz and country music and plays guitar, banjo and piano as well as being addicted to reading mystery and crime fiction.