The anti-Hillary Clinton books are coming

Every presidential election brings a seemingly unending series of books by prospective and declared candidates, and they start coming earlier every cycle. The 2016 race promises to bring another kind of book, though, and they’ve already started arriving -- works by authors sharply critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is so far the only major Democratic candidate to have declared her candidacy.

So far, the hottest book in that genre appears to be “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” by conservative author Peter Schweizer. The New York Times obtained a copy of the book, which is slated for release on May 5 from Harper, a HarperCollins imprint, and reported that it “asserts that foreign entities who made payments to the Clinton Foundation and to Mr. Clinton through high speaking fees received favors from Mrs. Clinton’s State Department in return.”

(The newspaper also notes that “major news organizations including The [New York] Times, The Washington Post and Fox News have exclusive agreements with the author to pursue the story lines found in the book.”)

The book is already controversial. At Salon, writer Heather Digby Parton compared the book to John O’Neill’s and Jerome Corsi’s “Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry,” released in 2004, which partially led to the political term “swiftboating,” or attacking a candidate for untrue or exaggerated reasons.

The author David Brock joined the fray Tuesday during an appearance on the MSNBC show “Morning Joe,” calling the book “a political put-up job.” Fox News reported that “Republicans are eagerly anticipating the release of the book,” and noted that Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican presidential candidate, seemed to refer to the book earlier this month, saying, “I think there are things that went on at the Clinton Foundation that are going to shock people. And I think they’re going to make people question whether or not she ought to run for president.”

“Clinton Cash” will likely be a hit -- it’s currently the 10th-ranked book on Amazon, and holds the No. 1 spot in the national politics category. But it won’t be the only book to take aim at the former senator and secretary of State.

The Christian Science Monitor noted that at least three other books have made waves in the “anti-Hillary” genre: Edward Klein’s “Blood Feud,” Daniel Halper’s “Clinton Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine” and Aaron Klein’s “The Real Benghazi Story: What the White House and Hillary Don’t Want You to Know.”

Of course, there’s also a book by the candidate herself. The paperback version of Clinton’s recent memoir, “Hard Choices,” will be released next week, with an updated epilogue discussing the birth of her granddaughter, Charlotte. “Rather than make me want to slow down, it has spurred me to speed up,” writes the candidate.