The Power Game

A suspenseful thriller of high-stakes political deception, from a former State Department official with years of insider access to Washington politics

“An entertaining tale of good intentions gone awry in the nation’s capital.” —The Washington Post

Peter Cutler is a respected Princeton professor living a quiet academic life. Then one afternoon, an old college friend makes him an offer he can’t refuse: the position of foreign policy adviser to the Democratic presidential candidate. Cutler takes the job and eagerly jumps into the political fray. But he soon finds out that the power politics of Washington are a far cry from the comforts of university life. The Power Game tracks Cutler’s rise in government and his realization that survival requires participation in a ruthless game of tug-of-war in which everyone struggles to promote their own agenda.

• “An entertaining tale of good intentions gone awry in the nation’s capital.” 
  The Washington Post
• “A beautiful portrait of a government official who is torn apart by his work . . . The narrator’s struggles to balance his work and his family, his lust and his wife, the risk of nuclear terrorism and the risk of his father dying alone, make for a superb, moving novel, the kind you really don’t want to put down.” 
  Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times
• “Sophisticated insight into what kinds of issues matter in Washington and how people in power battle them out. Nye takes us inside the State Department, Pentagon, and White House and gives us a chance to watch and listen. We need more writers like Nye to tell us what it’s really like.” 
  The Washingtonian