A few years ago I read a silly story about Joe Biden and Barack Obama trying to solve the mystery of an AMTRAK conductor being murdered while their Secret Service handlers and wives went “REALLY?”. This is its sequel. President Obama has lost his Blackberry, and we are at DEFCON 2.

That should be warranted. Why is President Obama using a BlackBerry in 2019? Dude, we have iPhones and Pixels! And even Samsung Galaxies, but give the Note7 a miss. No one comments on the oddity of using BlackBerries, but things get interesting when Obama and Biden do a location request on the BlackBerry and it shows up in the freight yards: Obama wipes the phone remotely, but Biden is intrigued. There’s something rotten in the state of Chi-Town! Scranton Joe strikes out in search of answers, but finds only more questions. (And thank goodness, because that’s generally how mystery novels work.) A young hotshot intern who also worked at the freight line has been shot, and is expected to die. Did he steal the President’s phone? Why?

Unlike the first book, Biden and Obama are not dogged by police who wish these two retired politicians (well, semi-retired — Biden is thinking about the 2020 election) would butt out, but they’re running around the South Side of Chicago — which, judging by the song “The Night Chicago Died”, is not a side to hang around in. The book leans heavily into mythic perceptions of both men, partially for a joke: even when Obama is tied up in a speakeasy and finds out that one of his captors didn’t vote, he has to give a lecture on the importance of serious voting. Biden, meanwhile, is obsessed with his everyman image and the ‘old man’ who doesn’t recognize any culture reference past the 1960s while Obama is so cool he’s tired of being cool. It’s a strange combination of Chicago crime and Presidential satire/humor.

I didn’t like this as much as the first book, possibly because the first title had the advantage of novelty: it also had the advantage of a more interesting supporting cast. Still, it was fine for a few hours of laughs and eye-rolls.

Related:
If Presidential humor is your thing, check out FinnFTW on youtube. He uses AI and character-accurate scripts (and….vulgarity) and has presidents playing video games together. It’s hilarious.

Don’t worry about me,” I told him. “This isn’t my first rodeo.” It wasn’t until I shut the door that I remembered I’d never been to a rodeo.

[Obama] closed his eyes and massaged his temples. “I was supposed to give up my phone for Lent. I was good for a couple of weeks, but then I started sneaking it out to check basketball scores. And then read the paper. And pretty soon I’d fallen off the wagon completely.” He looked over at me.
“Maybe this is God’s way of helping me get back on the wagon.”
“Lent? Trying to reconnect with your Irish ancestors?”
“More like trying to reconnect with my family. Michelle wanted me to try going a month without it. Said she ‘wanted her husband back.’”

One of my nicknames may have been Amtrak Joe, but I’d spent more time behind the wheel than Mario Andretti. “Car Joe” didn’t quite have the same ring to it, however.

Barack rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. I didn’t actually see him do it —the glasses were reflective for a reason—but I knew him well enough to know which way his eyes rolled.

Neither of us had a pool of speechwriters to help us prepare our remarks—that era was long gone. Our old speechwriters were all podcasting now. One of these days, I was going to have to ask someone what in blue blazes a “podcast” was.

“Joe,” Barack said, “if I hear one more story about your weird 1930s all-boys prep school, I’m going to lose it. We’re going to have quiet time. Whoever can stay silent the longest gets two scoops of chocolate-chip ice cream.”
“And a waffle cone?”
“And a waffle cone,” he said. “We start now.”
“If you think I can’t shut up for five minutes, then—”
“You’re still talking.”

Hip-hop wasn’t my bowl of chili, so I couldn’t tell you the artist’s name. I still remember the first hip-hop song I’d ever heard. Tipper Gore had played it for me on a Walkman. She was shaking her head the whole time, and then afterward asked if I wasn’t moved to do something about it. I’m moved to turn it off, I joked.

“If we go sniffing around, asking questions like what you’re asking, we could wind up in Chicago overcoats. Six feet under.”
Barack shot me a perturbed look. “Chicago overcoats? The last person to actually say that out loud was John Dillinger. Just say coffins, Joe. Coffins.”