James Comey Writes a Thriller

The Book Case

ABC News

Fiction, Arts, Books, Society & Culture

4.1 • 766 Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2023

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our principal guest this week is James Comey. Yes, that James Comey. Ex-FBI Director James Comey. Some of Hillary Clinton’s supporters think he may have cost her the election in 2016. Comey says that Donald Trump, once president, invited him to dinner and asked for a pledge of loyalty. Comey refused. Trump eventually fired him but his administration denied the president ever made the ask. That, in short, is part of the story of Jim Comey who, after being a U-S Attorney and then head of the FBI, found himself out of a job in 2017 and a controversial figure. What did he decide to do? Well, Jim Comey decided he’d like to spend the rest of his life being a novelist. His first book - a mystery, a legal thriller, and a novel demonstrating his inside knowledge of America’s justice system is “Central Park West.” It’s a good one - not just for a first effort, but a good one, period. He’s a good story teller - he’s a good conversationalist. “Central Park West” will be in book stores May 30th - he talked with us just before publication and he is very much worth a listen just as his book is worth your time. Our friend Otto Penzler of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York published the Comey novel. He joined us as well. Books mentioned in this podcast: Central Park West: A Crime Novel by James Comey Saving Justice: Truth, Transparency and Trust by James Comey A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership by James Comey Moral Man and Immoral Society by Reinhold Niebuhr Desert Star by Michael Connelly I Will Find You by Harlan Coben A Heart Full of Headstones by Ian Rankin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:36.0	Welcome book clubbers. It's good to have you with us, all you clubbers. I'm Charlie Gibson, along with my co-host.
0:43.6	Kate Gibson, who I don't know what we're clubbing. I don't know what club I have. I don't know.
0:49.8	Are we talking about the eight? Like, I don't know where the clubbing's going, but there you I am a member of your club I club with you oh all right this is getting a little
0:59.0	inane our guest today is James Comey that is a name well known to Americans and he's a
1:05.4	controversial name but he has decided and we'll get into this in a minute he has decided
1:10.8	having suddenly found himself out of a job in 2017, that he would be a novelist.
1:16.2	Now, that's not easy to do when you haven't done it before, but we'll get into it because he's done a nice job.
1:22.3	And we came to this novel.
1:24.1	Well, we've known about this novel for a long, long time before its publication,
1:28.0	right? Yeah, you know, this was one of those things where a bookstore owner we know in love,
1:31.8	Otto Pansler, who runs the mysterious bookshop, and who we've had contact with on and off
1:36.2	throughout our year on the air. And he said, you've got to take a look at the new James Comey mystery.
1:40.6	And I think we both turned around into James Comey, James Comey, James Comey. And he said, yeah, James Comey, James Comey. And I think we both sort of said, yeah, sure, fine. We'll take a look at it when it comes out. And we had the same, you know, thought, which is, oh, good, celebrity decides they're going to write a novel. I mean, he's not your average celebrity. But, you know, normally when vanity projects happen, they're vanity projects.
2:02.7	So when we read it, we were both really pleased to find out that it was a page turner whose ending,
2:08.8	I did not guess, which I think for a first time novelist is pretty impressive. The name of the book
2:14.8	is Central Park West. But Kate's right. We looked at it skeptically,
	...

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