Praise

An Official Summer Read of Publishers Weekly and The Interrobang

A 2018 Goodreads Choice Award Finalist



“[Hope Never Dies is] a roughly 300-page work of political fanfiction, an escapist fantasy that will likely appeal to liberals pining for the previous administration, longing for the Obama-Biden team to emerge from political retirement as action heroes. But it’s also at times a surprisingly earnest story about estranged friends who are reunited under strange circumstances.”—Alexandra Alter, New York Times



“It’s a giddy premise, a bit of Resistance wish-fulfillment for those who’d like to see Biden and Obama trading one-liners and cracking skulls.”—New Yorker



“While readers are sure to get a kick out of the codenames and inside jokes used playfully throughout, Hope Never Dies is an intriguing saga that doesn’t sacrifice momentum for winks and nods.”—Entertainment Weekly



“It’s easy to imagine that if these fist-bumping brothers were ever to become a modern Sherlock and Watson, the world might be a better, more interesting place.”—USA Today, ★★★ out of four



“Obama and Biden are the ultimate crime-fighting team in Hope Never Dies.”—Washington Post



“An ambitious and completely successful novel.”—Booklist



“Deeply weird and very funny.”—The Wall Street Journal

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“Step aside Holmes and Watson; back off Poirot and Hastings. A new pair of amateur sleuths are hitting town this month: Barack Obama and Joe Biden.”—The Guardian (UK)



“Shaffer has sublimated liberal grief, nostalgia, and fantasy into a sort of allegorical potboiler.”—Slate



“A novel nostalgic for a feel-good moment in US politics—one that now seems far in the past.”—Quartz



“Hope Never Dies is the lighthearted antidote for our tense political times, the escapist summer book we all need. Once you read it, you’ll want more.”—Brooklyn Rail



“[Hope Never Dies] is a fun lark, and the world could use more of that these days.”—Florida Times-Union



“Hope Never Dies has humor and heart as well as plenty of adventure [and] surprisingly nuanced and tender takes on aging, masculinity, jealousy, and life after eight years in power.”—Santa Fe New Mexican



“[An] entertaining, offbeat whodunit…Fans of Carl Hiaasen’s comic crime novels will have fun.”—Publishers Weekly



“The cool, cerebral ex-POTUS is a reasonable stand-in for Sherlock Holmes, and his ex-VPOTUS, by turns appealingly modest and laughably self-satisfied, is in some ways a better Watson than the good doctor himself.”—Kirkus



“The beats of dialogue, the in-jokes, and the quips…make the book an entertaining light read.”—Lexington Herald-Leader



“Probably the most unlikely pair of detectives I have ever seen.”—Rincey Abraham, Book Riot