An incredible political thriller that’s also a primer on current Middle Eastern conflicts.
This debut novel presents an alternate portrait of the Middle East after Osama bin Laden’s death, while also stressing the need to bridge interfaith gaps.
In November 2011, Osama bin Laden is dead and the terrorist organization al-Qaida is in tatters. President Barack Obama’s first term closes with plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. However, the region still crawls with military contractors, including companies like the Chester Brampton Group, which run wars like for-profit schemes. Against this backdrop, three vital players emerge who have the potential to positively influence the next phase of Islam. The first is the exiled Ayatollah Arman Rastani, a Georgetown University professor who fled Iran after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s revolution. Rastani is slandered relentlessly as a spy and a spiritual inspiration for Iranian terrorists, and he’s kidnapped to London for interrogation. Then there’s Aleksandr Kozhevnikov, a former Spetsnaz (special forces) operative, who’s assigned by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service to help dismantle American contractors’ systematic manipulation of Middle Eastern resources. Finally, there’s Atamar “The Wolf” Anagul, a retired al-Qaida strategist who’s sought by his former terrorist allies, who wish to obliterate all aspects of moderate Islam—including Rastani. When a high-profile American visitor is killed near the United Nations’ fortified Green Zone, the lives of these three determined men fatefully intersect. In her terrifying but optimistic novel, Griffith-Dickson explores the reality of post-Osama bin Laden global events and speculates on how the creation of the Islamic State terrorist group might have been prevented; at one point, for example, Atamar says, “the only way to outmanoeuvre them is to build a pan-Islamic movement in Iraq.” The author offers a sweeping panorama that surrounds readers with many viewpoints on the saga of modern Islam, including those of British teenagers descending into terrorism and that of Rastani, who believes that one must “Move all things by love, with your desire, and that is how you transform evil into good, and goodness into perfection.” This novel is for anyone who’d like to see a future that’s built by discussion and compassion, rather than violence.
An incredible political thriller that’s also a primer on current Middle Eastern conflicts.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9576046-2-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: Ismo Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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