The Mayor’s Dead revolves around characters whose political party affiliation is not so much the left, right, or center but the political group of those with a reckless and insatiable hunger for power and passion for wealth to last hundreds of years. Then there are the book’s subtle and obvious hints of a dark foreboding tourist meddling about Bagdad by the Bay and the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, where San Francisco’s water comes from. Come what may, in the end, it will all boil down to who wins, who loses, and of course, who dies. To say the Mayor’s Dead is a thriller about historical events depicting the darker side of humanity and culture would be an understatement.