From Steve Israel, the Congressman-turned-novelist who writes âin the full-tilt style of Carl Hiaasenâ (The Washington Post), a comic tale of the mighty firearm industry, a small Long Island town, and Washington politics: âCongress should pass a law making Big Guns mandatory reading for themselvesâ (Nelson DeMille).
When Chicagoâs Mayor Michael Rodriguez starts a national campaign to ban handguns from Americaâs cities, towns, and villages, Otis Cogsworth, the wealthy chairman and CEO of a huge arms company in Asabogue, Long Island, is worried. In response, he and lobbyist Sunny McCarthy convince an Arkansas congressman to introduce federal legislation mandating that every American must own a firearm. Events soon escalate.
Asabogueâs Mayor Lois Leibowitz passes an ordinance to ban guns in the townâright in Otis Cogsworthâs backyard. Otis retaliates by orchestrating a recall election against Lois and Jack Steele, a rich town resident, runs against her. Even though the election is for the mayor of a small village on Long Island, Steele brings in the big guns of American politics to defeat Lois. Soon, thousands of pro-gun and anti-gun partisans descend on Asabogue, and the bucolic town becomes a tinderbox. Meanwhile, Washington politicians in both parties are caught between a mighty gun lobby and the absurdity of requiring that every American, with waivers for children under age four, carry a gun. What ensues is a discomfiting, hilarious indictment of the state of American politics.
âNew York congressman-turned-novelist Steve Israel delivers a second brilliant political satireâ (Booklist, starred review). âAn entertaining satireâ (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Big Guns is âa wonderfully irreverent satire about the fractured and fractious American political and lobbying systemâŚa rollicking comedic tripâ (Publishers Weekly).