The First Hostage by Joel C. Rosenberg

This book is the second in Rosenberg's J. B. Collins series. Collins is a Middle East reporter for The New York Times. I have not read the first book in the series yet.

The hostage mentioned in the title is the President of the United States. He was kidnapped at a peace conference in Amman, Jordan. ISIS is the perpetrator of a large-scale attack on world leaders attending the conference. The Jordanians, along with an American special operations team, head up an effort to find and rescue the president. Collins is caught in the action and becomes eye-witness to the planning and execution of the rescue. But, will it be successful.

As usual, Rosenberg brings the drama and action to life with believable characters and almost constant suspense. The author's knowledge of Middle Eastern politics and the people involved make his stories feel like they came from front-page news rather than a fictional novel. While being entertained, the reader learns more about the dynamics of Middle Eastern politics.

I have read and reviewed Rosenberg's Twelfth Imam series on this blog. Check them out at this link.

Note: For some of my reviews, the publisher sent me the book at no charge in exchange for a review. This is not one of them.

Image source: http://www.joelrosenberg.com/books-dvd/

Damascus Countdown by Joel C. Rosenberg

The final book in the Twelfth Imam series, Damascus Countdown, lives up to its designation as a political thriller. The Muslim "messiah" is in control of Iran's nukes and the Pakistanis are looking to join the Caliphate. Between Iran's nukes and those of Pakistan, there's enough firepower to wipe out both the Little Satan, Israel, and the Big Satan, the United States.

In the last book, Israel launched a preemptive strike against Iran's nukes. They got most of them, but there are two unaccounted-for. All of Israel's neighbors except Syria are striking back with missiles. David Shirazi, undercover CIA agent in Iran, and his paramilitary team are racing against time to find and destroy the last two nukes.

I don't want to give away the ending, but Syria does get involved. The Twelfth Imam wants to launch the two nukes at Israel from Damascus. The drama keeps you reading. Is Israel doomed? Can David's team stop the launch?

Damascus Countdown is definitely a thriller. I highly recommend it because Rosenberg lays out a very believable scenario on how the conflict in the Middle East might end. He knows current politics and the players. He's an avid supporter of Israel, and it shows in the story. His characters are well-developed and believable. Some have criticized his inclusion of Christian evangelism by the characters. That did not bother me, although it did interrupt the flow of the story at times.

I only started reading this series because the first book, The Twelfth Imam, was offered free on Kindle. I guess that marketing ploy worked, because I  was hooked. I definitely wanted to finish the series. See my review of The Twelfth Imam here. I also reviewed the second book, The Tehran Initiative.

The author offers a free chapter on his website here.

Note: I borrowed this book from my public library.

Skip Rock Shallows by Jan Watson

From the back cover: Lilly Gray Corbett has just graduated from medical school and decided to accept an internship in the coal camp of Skip Rock, Kentucky. Her beau, Paul, is doing his residency in Boston and can’t understand why Lilly would choose to work in a backwater town. But having grown up in the mountains, Lilly is drawn to the stubborn, superstitious people she encounters in Skip Rock—a town where people live hard and die harder and where women know their place. Lilly soon learns she has a lot to overcome, but after saving the life of a young miner, she begins to earn the residents’ trust.

As Lilly becomes torn between joining Paul in Boston and her love for the people of Skip Rock, she crosses paths with a handsome miner—one who seems oddly familiar. Her attraction for him grows, even as she wrestles with her feelings and wonders what he’s hiding.

My review: It's an enjoyable story. However, I wonder how many young Kentucky women became medical doctors in the early 1900s. If you accept that premise, the rest of the story is believable and well-crafted. Watson's characters seem real, and most of them are likeable. The language she uses adds to the "country" feel of the story-telling. I do think she could have wound the story up a bit sooner than she did. About three quarters of the way through, I knew how it would end and wondered why it was taking so long to conclude the story. Still, I recommend it as a fun summer read.

Watson won the Jerry B. Jenkins Operation First Novel contest in 2004 with Troublesome Creek, the first installment in a series of stories set in Eastern Kentucky coal country around the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. See the list on her website. The main character in this book, Lilly, was introduced in a previous book. I think I'll go back and start with Troublesome Creek.

Disclaimer: This book was not given to me by the author or the publisher.

The Tehran Initiative by Joel C. Rosenberg

Picking up where The Twelfth Imam left off, The Tehran Initiative is a political thriller about what could happen if Iran gets nuclear weapons. At this point in the story, an Iranian strike seems imminent. They have the nuclear bombs, it's just a question of when they will use them.

David Shirazi, CIA operative, is in a quandry. He's managed to go into Iran undercover and gain the trust of some of the major players in the government. But, he's come back to the US to be with his dying mother. His parents were born in Iran and escaped when the Shah was deposed in 1979. David speaks the language and is now perfectly positioned to locate the Iranians' nukes. He finally tells his father why he has to leave. To his surprise, his father gives his blessing.

So it's back to Iran for David (undercover name Reza Tabrizi) to try to get the location of the nukes so that they can be neutralized. The Iranians believe the time is right to destroy Israel and America because their messiah figure, The Twelfth Imam, has appeared and plans to establish the longed-for Caliphate. But, Jesus is active in the story, too. Iranians who are secret Christians work to give information to the Americans.

It's definitely a thriller, and I recommend it, not because I am a thriller fan. I hope many people will read it because it provides a what if scenario for the Middle East political situation. I probably would never have read this book if I hadn't "bought" The Twelfth Imam free for Kindle. Little did I know that it was the first of a trilogy. David makes progress in The Tehran Initiative, but the reader is left hanging yet again. Fortunately, the third book in the trilogy has recently been released. Check out Damascus Countdown on the author's website.

Disclosure: I borrowed this book from my public library.

The Twelfth Imam by Joel C. Rosenberg

Someone posted on Facebook a few days ago, "The Twelfth Imam is free on Kindle today." So, I clicked over, took a look, and "bought it." I had no idea what I was getting into. As it turns out, this book is the first installment in a trilogy of political thrillers about Iran's race for nuclear weapons and how that dovetails with end-times prophecy. Once I started reading, I was hooked.

David Shirazi is a CIA agent posing as a telecommunications expert selling the services of a German company to the government of Iran. He speaks Farsi because his parents are Persians who escaped Iran during 1979 American embassy hostage crisis. They raised their three children in the U. S. and kept in contact with the couple who helped them get out of Iran. David is enamored of their daughter, but they live too far apart to make a go of it.

Now, David is embroiled in the race to stop Iran from getting nukes. At the same time, the long-awaited "messiah" of the Muslim faith, the twelfth imam, appears to have finally come. The imam encourages the destruction of Israel and the USA to celebrate his arrival. Meanwhile, David earns the trust of the powers that be in Iran and helps to bug their communications. The story ends rather abruptly, probably to pique your interest about what happens in the next book.

Author Rosenberg weaves a compelling tale, including a turning point in the story centering around 9/11. David and his love interest seem to have hopes for a reunion, but he's entangled in his mission. The book ends with Iran setting off an underground nuclear test, which is first mistaken for an earthquake. What will happen to David, his love life, his compatriots in the CIA, Israel, the world?

I think Amazon's marketing strategy for the trilogy worked on me. The theory is, once you read the first one for free, you'll break down and buy the others. I'm waiting to see if I can get the second one, The Tehran Initiative, at my public library. The third, Damascus Countdown, releases March 5, 2013. Learn more about the author on his website.


Image from http://www.joelrosenberg.com/books-dvd/.

The Secret Holocaust Diaries by Nonna Bannister

Nonna Bannister was a Russian girl who came to America after losing her entire family during WWII. She married an American and raised a family in Jackson, Tennessee. Neither her new family nor her friends knew much about her former life. But, she had a story to tell, and she finally decided to share it with her husband in the 1990s.

Nonna had kept a diary since she was a young girl, but she hid her dairies and her Russian family’s photos, keeping them with her throughout her tragic journey from Russia to America. She had been a member of a wealthy Russian family, but they lost most of their property following the Russian revolution and in the run-up to WWII. Nonna and her mother fled Russia for Poland and then Germany, where her mother died in a concentration camp. Nonna was very ill at war’s end and was cared for in first a Catholic hospital and then an Allied hospital for a couple of years. When she was well enough, she persisted in her dream to come to the U.S. mainly because that’s what her parents wanted for her---to get out of Europe.

All of her original family were either dead or their whereabouts were unknown. So, Nonna put her old life behind her and started a new one. Through the years, she kept the diaries and the few mementos of her family, but she never showed them to anyone. She had a ticking-striped pillowcase that she had kept with her since Russia. Her husband said she slept with it every night and that she was buried with it when she died in 2004.

Working with the family, coauthors Carolyn Tomlin and Denise George compiled and edited Nonna’s writings for this incredible book. Nonna’s courage and endurance in the face of danger, loss, and illness is remarkable. She wanted her story to be told because she did not want the world to forget the atrocities that she witnessed at the hands of her own countrymen and the Germans.

I saw the promotional material about this book on Carolyn Tomlin’s website, and I knew that I had to read it. Luckily, I found it at my public library. I recommend that everyone interested in WWII and the Holocaust, read this book. The stories are as interesting as they are touching. It is well organized, and editors have made notes where Nonna’s diaries were unclear.

The book was published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2009. The publisher also provides a website where they provide additional information.

Riven by Jerry B. Jenkins

Most people know Jerry B. Jenkins as the author of the Left Behind series.

Even if you are not a fan of Jenkins' earlier works, give this one a chance. The style is totally different, and the characters are much more developed. And, for those who wonder what "riven" means, according to Dictionary.com, it means "to tear or rend apart."

The story traces the development of two main characters. Brady Wayne Darby is the disadvantaged and rebellious youth who messes up everything he comes in contact with. Finally, he ends up on death row. Rev. Thomas Carey is a has-been pastor who takes a job as a death-row chaplain, where he becomes Brady's spiritual mentor.

The book is very long with a number of characters to keep up with. I almost lost interest a couple of times, but I made myself continue reading. Brady is redeemed at the end, but I won't spoil it by telling you how it happened. There were many points in the book where I could have put it down and left it for days, but not during the last few chapters. Suffice it to say that I found that part riveting.

You can purchase the book on Jenkins' site or from Amazon.com.