Baker Mischief Book 4
Political Thriller
Date Published: 06-10-2025
What would happen if a man of integrity, calm judgment, and firm
conservative principles were elected our President? Would he do better than
what we have? Or might he discover that behind America’s expressed
principles something still lingers from the Fall? That behind our longing
for justice, for community, for fairness, for freedom, for beauty,
proportion, for the things that nurture all that is good, Something is still
out there?
Let’s see.
Excerpt
Ed Baker, professor of political science emeritus, watched a burst of snow
obliterate the lights on the opposite shoreline. The world out the window
got smaller. Since Melody had introduced him to her lake home in the
northwestern part of the state, this had seemed a haven and a refuge. Now it
began to feel like a premonition of four years for America. Dark, icy, and a
threat to your life.
It was early yet
today, not even breakfast time, and he’d finished email, lounging over
his computer at the kitchen island. Melody was sleeping in a bit, dealing
with some sort of cold for the last day or so. He was a little worried how
fast this had come on and how weak she was. Another cup of coffee? I believe
I will.
Looking back at him,
faintly mirrored in the window, he saw a white-haired, white-bearded figure
of middling height, dark wire-framed glasses, a little thicker around the
middle than was probably healthy. Shadowy in a robe and slippers.
That’s me, he thought. Pretty conventional. Beard and hair trimmed.
Not ratty, not too well turned out. No lean Jordan Peterson, no pudgy,
sloppy Jeff Bridges, no crisp Alec Guinness. No old surprises, and I feel
like I’m fresh out of new ones. Just me.
When his journey
into being a gadfly, a subtle saboteur, had begun four years ago, he had
been widowed, a little thinner, clean-shaven, and dark-haired with some
threads of white. Not any longer, he thought, and sighed happily.
He thought about that hyphenated estimate of the country’s emotional
condition: “pre-suicidal.” He wouldn’t have expected the
presidential election of 2024 to have turned out to be so emotionally
devastating. When Former President Frederick Underwood Gray had
“disappeared,” fleeing to Moscow in the face of possible
impending arrest, and current President Gerard Freeman had decided to
withdraw so both parties could start over, Baker had been cautiously
optimistic. Both Democrats and Republicans had publicly talked about a
“reset,” with reaffirmation of “first principles”
about government. He hoped for new platforms.
It hadn’t
happened.
About the Author
Dr. Richard Sherry is the author of the Baker Mischief series, including A
Month of Sundays (2022) ; Mondays, Mondays (2023) ; and First Tuesday 2024.
The political thriller series introduces retired political science professor
Dr. Ed Baker, determined to open up American politics to daylight. He is
almost always up against both the law and forces attempting to conceal their
influence on American life. In A Month of Sundays, Baker uncovers who owns
senators up for election in 2020 and releases their emails to the voters in
their states. In Mondays, Mondays, he reveals a “voting bloc” in
the Supreme Court and who is influencing them. In First Tuesday, Baker and
his former students look at the influential forces behind the 2024
presidential election, with surprising results.
Richard released a memoir in 2020, The Long Run: Meditations on Marriage,
Dementia, Caregiving, and Loss (2020), about his first wife’s illness and
death.
Richard is a retired college professor and administrator. He resides in
Minnesota and winters in Arizona with his wife Marjorie Mathison Hance,
author of the North lakes Murder Mystery Series.
Contact Links
Purchase Links
https://mybook.to/WednesdayAfter
