Capitol crime
Shastri Ramachandaran

The Zero Game
by Brad Meltzer. Coronet. Pages 460. Rs 200

Capitol Hill’s most famous intern was, without doubt, Monica Lewinsky. Now along comes another guy, Brad Meltzer. He too was an intern at 19. He has put his knowledge of and proximity to power to much better use: to write scorching thrillers of high politics as the perfect pitch for crime and swindles. Senators and Representatives are so caught up with the internal pressures of legislating that they hardly apply their mind to the laws they pass and the funds they sanction. A few deft manouevres and smooth lobbyists are all it takes to slip in a bid to appropriate funds for any project – even a criminal enterprise.

Like his earlier novels, The Zero Game too is based in Washington DC. Mathew Mercer and Harris Sandler are friends, working on the appropriation committees, of the House and Senate. They join what is called the Zero Game – betting on whether legislative business would get passed or not. When he wins the bet, Mathew smells a rat and trails the page who collected his bet money. It turns out to be a suicidal pursuit. When Harris sets out to track down Mathew’s killers, he finds he is up against a plot vastly bigger than the mere lease of an abandoned 8000-ft deep mine, which came up for Congressional funding.

Harris learns that in Washington DC no one can be trusted, not even his closest friends, to help him get at the men who are out to kill him – and others – who come in the way of their ambitious venture. Circumstances conspire to make a 17-year-old page cast her lot with him. They don’t really succeed, because the killer gets away, but the enterprise is scuttled and they survive to tell their story.

Meltzer tells a gripping tale without a moment’s slack and with lots of researched detail that doesn’t distract from the plot and its pace. He takes the reader on a guided tour of the architecture and working of Capitol Hill, and the horrific depths of a disused mine being redone to produce plutonium.

What spoils the book is the blurb on the back-cover. Obviously, the person who wrote it didn’t read the book; and the publishers and author didn’t bother to check whether what’s put on the jacket is true to the story. Mathew Mercer is bumped off quite early on and is not alive to be with Harris in uncovering the mystery, as stated on the book jacket.

Recommendation for those who cannot sleep because they have read all the John Grishams: Take Brad Meltzer to bed. More thrilling than anything you can imagine about Monica.

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