Ultimatum

 

By Richard Rohmer

5 Stars

Thriller

Adult

The author of this book has lived an incredibly full life, and as of the writing of this, he's still alive at 102 years old. The book was a number-one-selling book in Canada in 1973. I encountered it in my high school library within a few years of that and enjoyed it enough to eagerly read the sequel as soon as I found it in the same library.

This book was written with the oil crisis as a backdrop. America needs resources, and Canada has resources. They haggle and disagree, and finally the USA decides they need to annex Canada. I won't spoil the story about what happens. I will say that the premise of the story, for most of my life, came across as a little bit ridiculous; then Donald Trump got elected and decided to have a tariff war with us, spouting some very offensive rhetoric. I think that this book would really resonate with Canadian readers today. As a proud Canadian, I appreciated it and feel like giving it less than five stars would somehow feel disloyal. 

It's a worthy read, and I do recommend it even for readers who are not Canadian.