[Unfortunately "Liberty Two"] does not build with much suspense or persuasiveness—two essential ingredients of the political thriller…. [Lipsyte's] debut as a novelist is a distinct disappointment. Perhaps the greatest surprise to anyone who followed and admired his journalistic career is that the tough-mindedness of his sports writing is replaced here by easy sentimentality….

[Lipsyte's people] are burdened with cliché: the misguided zealot, the rich and cold-blooded manipulator, the man caught in the middle, the girl who captures and frees his heart. They are stock characters in a political set-piece, capable perhaps of piquing the reader's mild curiosity but not of engaging his emotions.

This is not to say that Lipsyte fails to make his point. Manipulation—of one sort or another—is all too often the name of the game in contemporary politics. But it is one thing to say the right thing, quite another to make good fiction out of it. The latter Lipsyte has failed to do.