[alert variation=”alert-info”]Publisher: Line of Fire Productions
Formats: Trade Paperback, eBook
Purchase: Powell’s | Amazon | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble | iBooks[/alert]

This is a delightful little book: If you’re a Libertarian or a masochist. It features a mash-up of styles including, but not limited to: satire, ridicule, polemics, action and romantic comedy. Does it work?

First of all, there is not one sympathetic character in the whole story. They’re impossible to even like, let alone cheer on. There’s the hero, Samson, the femme fatale, Delilah (yes, the pairing is deliberate) the minor villain, Phil S. Stein, the arch villain, Darth Nader and various incidental personas.

The story starts by establishing Samson as an unscrupulous used car dealer and tax cheat. After infiltration by the IRS in the person of Delilah, He is confronted by agent Elliot Mess who extorts a bribe, excepts same and then reneges and thus wins the first round, 400 thousand dollars richer. After His arrest, Samson escapes, is pursued across the country winding up on a tropical island He has purchased with seventeen billion dollars hacked from the IRS computers. He claims sovereignty and uses the leverage to thwart a grand plan for the IRS commissioner, Darth Nader, to gain word domination. So He’s a hero, kind of.

The fictional portion on the book is handled in an offhand, tongue-in-cheek manner and, in a way is subordinate to the real aim of the book: Demonizing the IRS and the whole idea of the income tax. Interspersed with the story are historically and factually based “musings” which extol the virtues from a libertarian viewpoint. It’s true the income tax was authorized by the sixteenth amendment passed in 1913. All after is opinion.

It seems like Mr. Greenfield had a bit of fun writing this. As I’m of the opposite polarity, I didn’t have quite as much fun reading it, but if You lean that way, You might like it fine.

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