Book Review: Everybody Wants to Rule the World

It’s 1985, what will soon become known as “The Year of the Spy,” and fourteen-year-old Peter Bennett is convinced his mom’s new boyfriend is a Russian agent. “Gary” isn’t in the phone book, has an unidentifiable European accent, and keeps a gun in the glove box of his convertible Porsche. Peter thinks Gary only wants to get close to his mom because she works at Scientific Atlanta, a lab with big government contracts. But who is going to believe him? He’s just a kid into BMX and MTV.

After another woman working at the lab is killed, Peter recruits an unlikely pair of allies: a has-been pulp writer/muckraker named Dennis Hotchner and his drag performer buddy/heavy Jackie Demure. Both soon become the target of an unhinged Russian hitman (Is it Gary? Maybe!) with a serious Phil Collins obsession.

Meanwhile, Sylvia Weaver, a young, Black FBI agent, investigates Scientific Atlanta in the wake of the employee’s murder and discovers a nest of Russian spies in the Southern “city too busy to hate.” Little does she know her investigation is being thwarted by a seriously compromised colleague in Washington, D.C., who is in league with a lovesick, hypochondriac KGB defector who is playing both sides of the Cold War to his benefit.

As Ronald Reagan and Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev prepare for a historic nuclear summit in Geneva, what happens in Atlanta might change the course of the Cold War, the twentieth century, and Peter Bennett’s freshman year of high school.

Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Ace Atkins will be published December 2, 2025. William Morrow provided an early galley for review.

Atkins had me at a thriller set in the 80's. Throw in musical references, and I simply could not resist checking it out.

From the description, you can tell there is a lot going on in this book. The narrative viewpoint hops around a lot (six viewpoints across fifty-three chapters). As someone who does not like juggling that many POVs, that was a bit of a challenge to keep straight. It was necessary to give the whole picture of the plot; I just found it much as a reader. At least it is all identified up front so one knows this going in.

The book is chock-full of 80's references. Quite a lot. For someone who came of age in this time, it hit that nostalgia sweet spot for me. This will vary depending upon the reader's reference points and tolerance for this kind of detail. For me, it totally worked.

All in all, a rousing adventure.