Wind in the Sahara

Rating:
Summary: A Timely Warning
Review: For those who would like to learn more about Islam, Morocco, and the workings of Washington, D.C., Wind in the Sahara provides an enthralling key. Author Louise Roberts Sheldon, formerly a foreign correspondent in North Africa, paints an authentic background for the twists and turns of a rollicking good plot.
Marc, an American foreign correspondent, is determined to write a story about rebels in the Sahara as a way to make his career. He meets Alysha, a beautiful young Moroccan woman, who turns out to have a variety of interests. Murder and kidnaping soon take center stage.
This novel captures the mystery and beauty of the desert with its danger of whirling sands and determined guerillas. Here politics has many shades and layers. The complexity of a woman's place in the Islamic world is also explored.
And for today's reader, there is an important message in this page-turner. This is an account based on reality of how American foreign policy is sometimes established by those whose personal and business concerns outweigh the national interest. Policy is also too often made without adequate local knowledge, a prerequisite for reasoned judgments about any particular part of the world. Louise Sheldon provides us with a timely warning.

Rating:
Summary: A Timely Warning
Review: For those who would like to learn more about Islam, Morocco, and the workings of Washington, D.C., Wind in the Sahara provides an enthralling key. Author Louise Roberts Sheldon, formerly a foreign correspondent in North Africa, paints an authentic background for the twists and turns of a rollicking good plot.
Marc, an American foreign correspondent, is determined to write a story about rebels in the Sahara as a way to make his career. He meets Alysha, a beautiful young Moroccan woman, who turns out to have a variety of interests. Murder and kidnaping soon take center stage.
This novel captures the mystery and beauty of the desert with its danger of whirling sands and determined guerillas. Here politics has many shades and layers. The complexity of a woman's place in the Islamic world is also explored.
And for today's reader, there is an important message in this page-turner. This is an account based on reality of how American foreign policy is sometimes established by those whose personal and business concerns outweigh the national interest. Policy is also too often made without adequate local knowledge, a prerequisite for reasoned judgments about any particular part of the world. Louise Sheldon provides us with a timely warning.

Rating:
Summary: Lively Tale of Timely Significance
Review: Louise Sheldon writes from direct experience, having lived for many years in North Africa. Her descriptions of that arid landscape and its people are vivid and dusty. For those of us in search of insight into the Arab perspective, this elegantly written slim volume is both entertaining and educational.