Mark Costello’s kaleidoscopic novel weaves together the stories of three people who guard the life of the Vice-President of the United States. Their problems multiply when their chief, Felker, realizes that he is better at planning attacks than foiling them, and disappears. While the team struggles to protect the V.P. and discover the whereabouts of their most dangerous threat, they must also contend with their unravelling personal lives: For Vi Asplund, the last agent to see Felker alive, that means sneaking time off to help her genius brother Jens get his marriage and his career as a computer-game designer back on track. Meanwhile Gretchen Williams veers between guilt for reneging on promises to watch her son’s baseball practice and fear that she’s neglecting her duties. She is trying desperately to be the hard-nosed chief she thinks the others expect. And then there’s ageing Agent Tashmo, whose anxieties about his daughter who is about to go off to college are matched only by the terror that Shirl, after 20 years of marriage, may have discovered the infidelities he no longer has the energy to pursue.
With Felker on the loose, the election just days away, and family traumas abounding Costello seamlessly interlaces the team’s burgeoning troubles. 'Big If' juggles assassination threats with school runs, and political victories with growing personal crises. It is a gripping, giddying, utterly original novel that will exhilarate and unnerve its readers in equal measure.