Those of one religion or another vary widely about how much of it they accept. When their senses repel what they regard as unbelievable, members of the flock don't make an issue of it and go through the motions of what is expected of them. After all, there's much in their religion they fully accept.
THE SECRET SOLDIER
Alex Berenson Headline paperback (2011), 409 pp Available at Asia Books and leading bookstores, 595 baht
Fundamentalists, however, have no private reservations. True believers, every act in the Good Book is exactly as described. How can the word of God be open to question? The clerics are firm about this. Non-believers are mistaken, wrong devils, infidels. They must recant or die. There's no middle way.
Much has been written about the Inquisition, the enforcers of Holy Mother Church. Little about the Wahabis, the enforcers of Islam. In The Secret Soldier, US author Alex Berenson focuses on the Muslim factions in Saudi Arabia. Sadly, the title page has so many ifs, ands and buts that we are confused about how much of this novel should be taken seriously.
The plot pits King Abdullah (reformer) against his minister of defence brother Saeed (conservative). They are brothers and part of the conflict is the issue of succession. Abdullah wants his son Khalid to sit on the throne next. Saeed wants it for himself. The Americans do business with Abdullah, don't trust Saeed. Ex-CIA operative John Wells is the protagonist. The reader is asked to believe that Wells turned Muslim while stationed in Afghanistan. He's sent to the Oil Kingdom to assist Abdullah any way he can. Not that the king isn't protected by the national guard. But suicide bombers, like the one who blew up his granddaughter, are a real threat.
Hundreds of pages are devoted to the violence of the fundamentalists _ from preventing schoolgirls from fleeing a burning building to kidnapping the US ambassador to the country. The plan is to make the US invade Saudi Arabia to rescue him. Films of GIs in Mecca and Medina will infuriate the Muslim world into declaring a jihad.
Can Wells find and rescue him? Not if Hezbollah, out of Lebanon, can prevent it: And the secret police, run by Saeed's son, have been given the go-ahead to shoot him on sight. In the event, he kills a whole lot of them. The finis, no twists, is satisfactory.
THE LION OF CAIRO
Scott Oden Bantam paperback (2011), 500 pp Available at Asia Books and leading bookstores, 395 baht
A good assassin
Of all types of killers, assassins are the worst. They murder leading figures. Were the victims common folk, they'd be killed rather than assassinated. In real life, we regard them with contempt. In novels and on the silver screen, however, they are more often than not protagonists, their quarries deserving death.
The perverse reason they are heroes is that they are good at what they do. The accuracy of ninja throwing star-shaped razors or the methodical way the urban sniper assembles his rifle, scope, silencer. Or wield a sword or use poison. This reviewer doesn't root for them, but I fear I'm in the minority.
In The Lion of Cairo, US author Scott Oden, specialising in historical novels, has millennium-old assassin his literacy creation. Readers will find Assad of the al-Hashishya, a devotee of the Hidden Master of Alamut, unusual in that he's a Muslim with a visceral hatred of Christians in general, the Knights Templar in particular.
In Western classrooms, the Crusades are glossed over as centuries-long efforts by the soldiers of Christ trying to keep the spawn of the devil from gaining control of the Holy Land. As Oden notes and keeps reiterating, it wasn't so cut and dry. If anything, the Crusaders were crueller than their enemy.
Not that The Lion of Cairo is well-researched. The author allows that he had fabled 1001 Arabian Nights in mind when he penned it. Assad comes across like a kind of Muslim version of Douglas Fairbanks Sr or Errol Flynn _ climbing castle ramparts, duelling all and sundry with his sword. The Hammer of the Infidel.
Assad is sent by the master to end a feud between the Caliph and the grand vizier. Only when their forces are united can they hope to fight off the invaders _ the King of Jerusalem allied with the Templars, who aim to make Egypt their own. Oden's descriptions of the battles are vivid.
Our hero, also known as the Emir of the Knife, causes much Christian blood to flow. There are women _ a harem full _ Assad physically but not romantically involved. Those accepting the premise that the Christians were the villains ought to enjoy The Lion of Cairo.
