A review by mrpatperkins
House of Cards by Michael Dobbs
2.0
I decided to read House of Cards because I admire the Netflix series with Kevin Spacey, but this is one of the few times the show/movie is better than the book. Francis Urquhart lacks motivation for his quest for power, except for a weak connection to his departed father. Mattie Storin has even less development as a character, and that's it. All the other players just come and go, static and flat, offering a chess board full of pawns that can only move forward one step at a time until knocked out by the king. What Netflix has done well is give the protagonist's wife a much better developed role, establish Kevin Spacey as a powerful politician with a lust for higher power, and offer characters who seem real and feel as if they could move fluidly throughout the universe.
This book does none of that.
This book does none of that.