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More than anything else, The Overton Window is Glenn Beck's very own fantasy land. He's dreamed up a world in which all the conspiracies and apocalyptic rhetoric that clutter his chalkboards every night are proven to be entirely true. The constant refrain of victimization coming from the Tea Partiers is also revealed to be justified, as Beck constructs an elaborate network of government agencies, saboteurs, and agents provocateurs who exist solely to demonize the fictionalized versions of these unflinchingly patriotic Americans.
The Overton Window is also very creepy. The characters speak in stilted monologues that are stuffed with anti-progressive, limited-government talking points. They quote the Founding Fathers at length and from memory and breezily name-drop obscure political theorists as if they were talking about star athletes. The protagonist, Noah Gardner, and the love interest, Molly Ross, cap off their first kiss with a discussion of the flat tax.
What The Overton Window is not, despite the jacket's boasting, is "a thriller." The action is infrequent and confusing. Early on there's a police raid on a Tea Party-like gathering that involves a gun shot (that hits no one) and a beating. After that, the book goes 170 pages without any action at all. Instead we're treated to a break-in in which no one is in danger of being caught, a high-speed chase that almost happens, and a plot to use Star Wars quotes to bypass airport security. The action finally resumes with a gun fight in which a YouTube star-turned-FBI agent is revealed as a quick-draw specialist. A nuke goes off (killing three people), and the novel ends -- not with a tense denouement, but with a bewildering torture scene presided over by the ostensible villain, Noah's father, who recites the last of his many awkwardly ideological diatribes: "Saul Alinsky was right, Noah -- the ends do justify the means."
This lack of any appreciable action makes the book's many flaws, plot holes, and loose ends all the more glaring. An informant assassinated in the prologue is never mentioned again and the identity of his killer is never revealed. Beck introduces a doctor character in a mid-book chapter who performs no key role and is not heard from again. The characters who do stick around act in an incomprehensible fashion. At the beginning of the book, Noah's father insists that the time to launch the evil plot is nigh: "I told them that now is the time, and ultimately they concurred." At the end of the book, he says the exact opposite: "After all the years of preparation it was rushed forward, against my advice." Noah attends a political rally and constantly reminds the reader that the only reason he's there is to ingratiate himself to Molly, who quickly and harshly rebuffs him. So what does he do? He remains there, alone, for hours. Why? Simply because it's necessary to the plot.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-maloy/glenn-becks-emthe-overton_b_611745.html
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