The Imogen Trager novels are a fearless examination of our current moment, but the books were years in the making.

A lagging indicator is an economic term for “a measurable economic factor [e.g. interest rates, inflation, unemployment rates] that changes only after the economy has begun to follow a particular pattern or trend.” (Investopedia.com) But there are lagging indicators in the political realm, too, where by the time something registers as an issue or problem it’s already happening, fully formed.

If the daily newspaper is the “rough draft of history,” as Philip Graham of the Washington Post claimed, then fiction, a game of “what-if?” can serve as history’s cadastral surveyor, articulating context, delineating boundaries and contending with problems.

The Imogen Trager novels are a fearless examination of our current moment, but the books were years in the making. The outlines were there to see; and while the outcome wasn’t inevitable, the trajectory was real, and frightening. Faithless Elector, told through the story of an idealistic young researcher who’s in way over his head, spotlighted the inherent weaknesses in the Electoral College—weaknesses which remain latent and could still be exploited. Dark Network focuses on the gritty work of arresting a power grab and the forces arrayed to abet that seizure, told through the story of its feisty, committed heroine, FBI Analyst, Imogen Trager.

In the real world, we’re shocked to be now confronted with authoritarian propaganda at the highest levels, dismayed by craven apologia for that propaganda; by an increasingly irrelevant, neutered main stream media, and an administration that has its hands on all the levers of power. But this state of affairs has been apparent to anyone with imagination. It’s disturbing just how much these first two Imogen Trager novels get right regarding the context and background in which the conspirators operate—a pliant media, cowed by power, machinations at the highest levels of the Justice Department; fake news, false claims of voter fraud, collusion and corruption.

Pres. Trump, Att’y Gen., Sessions (A. Jackson)

Long before Donald Trump assumed the presidency, Dark Network grappled with the frightful possibility of a president with no check to his power aided by a politicized Justice Department. Both novels were written before the current administration. Trump and Sessions and McConnell are absent from their pages. But their outlines are unmistakable.