Rogue State

Rating:
Summary: An Awesome Thriller
Review: At once frightening in its real possibilities, this multi-layered story brings terrorism to its ultimate madness. Just as corruption crumbled the great Roman Empire from within, the two 20th Century superpowers-Russia and the United States-teeter on ever rotting moral underpinnings, and in a struggle to dominate their New World spheres of influence in the 21st Century ignite radical Old World hatred.

Two former enemies in the Middle East-Iraq and Iran-join forces in the spirit of Islamic fundamentalism to punish the great infidels-Russia and America. They recruit an American Chechen fighting Russia's suppression of Chechnya and fund a series of missions to destabilize Moscow's hold over the former Soviet empire. One is a plausible explanation for the underwater explosion that sunk the Kursk nuclear submarine. His main mission, however, is to assassinate President Vladimir Putin on American soil following the presidential election in 2000, when the results are so harrowing that it is weeks before Americans know who their next president is. Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Kambiz Abbasi hope that the murder of the Russian leader will throw these old enemies back in arms against each other and deflect attention from their regimes. Learning about the Chechen's plot, Putin sends out a KGB-trained butcher to hunt down this fleet-footed freedom fighter.

Meanwhile, in the United States, events unfold that color the country's honor bloody red. Good and evil merge in a mishmash of broken ideals and fanatic delusions. While a rogue mercenary, hired by a discontented splinter group that wants the 17th amendment revoked, unleashes a series of explosions that kill high-profile Washington targets, subversive political forces organize to fix the Bush-Gore election. This underworld of greedy power brokers called the Lexington Compact crosses into "black" CIA territory, using former assassins to cover their dirty tricks, and pitted against them is the FBI's Domestic Terrorism Unit, a team that is hog-tied by bureaucratic posturing. They are incredibly inept except for the help of three former special forces agents, who come out of retirement and end up beyond the law rendering proper justice in this new world without rules.

There is so much research and detail that the author has wisely listed all the characters and the roles they play in the front of the book. Though I had to refer to it a few times to keep everyone straight, the detail does not detract from the action and incredible descriptions (such as "Iraq and Iran sat like a hot griddle sizzling everything that crossed it" and "the thirsty sand sucked up the bloody carnage") as this thriller rockets from fact to fiction like a "live" exercise in terrorist anarchy. If anything, the "Rogue State" presents the best-case scenario as to why President Bush feels justified in raising his saber against those threatening terrorism.

This terrorist tome is a must read, and Douglas De Bono rises above even Tom Clancy and Clive Cusseler in his portrayal of the world today.

Rating:
Summary: Rogue State
Review: In Rogue State Iran and Iraq work together to recruit a Chechen rebel to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin in Washington, D.C. In response, the Russians send in an FSB officer who is put on the trail of the Cechen assassin while another search is taking place within the US for rogue operative Damon Layne. The pace and suspense never lights up until the last page. This was another intelligently written and tightly plotted thriller, tying in with the sinking of the Kursk and the 2000 Presedential election, from Douglas De Bono who is just the right author for everyone complaining that Clancy is losing his touch. This author has yet to turn out a bad book and I anxiously await Firewall.