A Capital Calamity

A CAPITAL CALAMITY - A Novel by Fred Kaplan "Serge Willoughby just wanted to make money and have fun. He didn't mean to start World War Three." So begins A Capital Calamity, the rollicking debut novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author Fred Kaplan. The "War Stories" columnist for Slate, author of six books, mostly about national security (including The Insurgents, which was a N.Y. Time best-seller and a Pulitzer Prize Finalist), Kaplan draws on four decades as an insider-outsider observer in this tale of manners-both satire and thriller-about the Washington scene. (The prologue reads, "Much of what follows is true, except for the plot"), it tells the story of a cynical defense consultant whose mischief plunges the world into a cataclysmic crisis. Now, along with the CIA director (who is also a bitter ex-girlfriend), a former school chum who's now an NSA hacker, a garrulous Wall Street tycoon-turned-secretary of defense, and a beautiful intrepid journalist (who may or may not be flirting with him for a big story), Willoughby must now end the crisis, though he has spent his life avoiding commitment to any political cause or purpose. A Capital Calamity is a funny, trenchant, deeply moral novel, in the spirit of Thank You for Smoking, Our Man in Havana, and Dr. Strangelove. Advance praise for A Capital Calamity: "A joyful romp! Just when we need satire more than ever, one of our best political commentators has morphed into a brilliant and irresistible comic novelist."
JOE WEISBERG, creator of The Americans "Fred Kaplan's new book gives us comedy, treachery, ideas, and shrewd cultural anthropology-all against a page-turner background of the highest-stakes international showdown. It's like the cast of Veep in a Tom Clancy book. Readers will learn a lot, and have fun while doing so."
JAMES FALLOWS, former chief White House speechwriter, author of National Defense and other books "Kaplan pulls back the curtain hiding how Washington really works in this only slightly exaggerated, darkly humorous look at 'national security' and 'unthinkable' nuclear war. Sometimes you can tell more truth through fiction, and this true fiction is fun."
RICHARD A. CLARKE, former White House counterterrorism chief, author of Against All Enemies and The Scorpion's Gate "An experienced observer of the entanglements in Washington, Kaplan skewers the Beltway effectively in this satirical novel, a thriller and morality tale... The author claims that the plot is made up, but the knowing reader will recognize aspects of the main characters and events in contemporary figures and historical episodes."
LAWRENCE FREEDMAN, Foreign Affairs "Kaplan is the undisputed master of nuclear knowledge. Needless to say, anything Fred Kaplan writes, I read. His new novel, A Capital Calamity, is very dark and very funny... Five stars for this cautionary tale."
ANNIE JACOBSEN, author of Nuclear War: A Scenario "The Catch-22 of our day! A Capital Calamity is a wry chuckle-filled look at how one savvy insider schlub starts a war. It's a genius work."
MALCOLM NANCE, former Navy intelligence officer, author of The Plot to Hack America "I've learned so much from Fred Kaplan's knowing dissections of DC politics over the years, but A Capital Calamity finally reveals the full range of his insights and talents. Think Michael Clayton and The Insier-but funny."
STEVE LICHTMAN, TV writer-producer (The Good Wife, The Medium)