The Fourth Branch

Rating:
Summary: Guaranteed to hold the reader's rapt and total attention
Review: First published in 1999, well before the September 11 attacks, The Fourth Branch is a suspenseful novel by Josef Wilson that echoes present-day reality. Bobby Rodrigues is a CIA agent with inside information on a terrorist organization that is setting its sights on Washington D.C., and when his own mentor is murdered, Rodrigues must turn to a rogue intelligence organization to unravel the shroud concealing a brutal and demonic conspiracy. The Fourth Branch is a chilling story, adroitly told, and guaranteed to hold the reader's rapt and total attention from first page to last.

Rating:
Summary: Speechless...
Review: This book is on par with ANYTHING Clancy has put out there! After the crisis America has just gone through, this book feels lifted from the headlines. I'm just utterly out of words to explain how hard this book hits and how important a read this book is. Find this book and read it soon!

Rating:
Summary: Shades of Grey in the Middle East
Review: This is a first novel that presents an interesting look at the Arab-Israeli conflict and how it touches not just Arabs and Palestinians, but people of all nationalities, all over the world. The villians and heroes aren't who you might expect, and one of the key bits of subtext to this book is that the battle over the "Holy Lands" has never really been as holy as we like to believe. The cast of characters is as diverse and motley as the Star Wars cantina theme, with a Portuguese/American CIA operative, a Lebanese/American Navy SEAL, an arrogant Texas oilman, a beautiful Palestinian freedom fighter, and a vicious Texas assassin with strange ties to an eerily familiar first family. If there's a weakness to this book, it's one common to many first novels - too much ambition for the first-time novelist's skill. But the plot is imaginative and will keep you guessing up until the last pages. If you like your heroes and your politics in plain black and white, this one will challenge you. If you like to be educated and entertained at the same time, I think you will really like this one. I guarantee you won't look at the Arab/Israel conflict the same way again!