See the cover of Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton's thriller State of Terror
State of Terror will be published on Oct. 12, 2021
Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton have revealed the cover of the thriller they are writing together.
The novel is called State of Terror and it will be released on Oct. 12, 2021. It will be jointly released by Clinton's publisher, Simon & Schuster, and Penny's, St. Martin's Press.
In State of Terror, a "novice" secretary of state, working in the administration of a rival politician, tries to solve a wave of terrorist attacks.
According to Simon & Schuster and St. Martin's, the main character is "tasked with assembling a team to unravel the deadly conspiracy, a scheme carefully designed to take advantage of an American government dangerously out of touch and out of power in the places where it counts the most."
Penny said she could not "say yes fast enough" to the chance of working with Clinton.
"When it was suggested my friend Hillary and I write a political thriller together, I could not say yes fast enough," Penny said in a press release. "What an incredible experience, to get inside the State Department. Inside the White House. Inside the mind of the secretary of state as high stake crises explode. Before we started, we talked about her time as secretary of state. What was her worst nightmare? State of Terror is the answer."
Thirteen years ago, Penny was a CBC broadcaster and journalist. Now, she's an award-winning author who has sold millions of books and has won armloads of prizes, thanks to her Inspector Armand Gamache mysteries. The series include Still Life, Bury Your Dead, A Trick of the Light, Glass Houses. and All the Devils Are Here. In 2013, Penny was named to the Order of Canada.
"Writing a thriller with Louise is a dream come true," Clinton said when the book was first announced.
"I've relished every one of her books and their characters as well as her friendship. Now we're joining our experiences to explore the complex world of high stakes diplomacy and treachery. All is not as it first appears."
Clinton served as secretary of state under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013. State of Terror appears to draw not just on her years as secretary of state, but on her thoughts about the Trump administration's "America First" foreign policy.
Clinton has written a handful of nonfiction works. They include the memoir Living History, Hard Choices, which covered her time with Obama, who defeated her in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, and What Happened, which focuses on her stunning loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 election. State of Terror is her first work of fiction.
With files from the Associated Press
