Book picks similar to
The Scriptwriter by Adeerus Ghayan
pakistan
terrorism
politics
war-on-terror
Noble Beginnings
L.T. Ryan - 2013
A Marine in name only, Jack is on-loan to the CIA. Normally an integral part of the team, he finds that he is nothing more than a security detail in Iraq.Jack and his partner Bear have a run-in with four CIA special agents over the treatment of an Iraqi family. Within hours Jack and Bear are detained.All Jack wanted was to finish his enlistment and move on with his life. All he did was intervene and save a family from unwarranted violence at the hands of four CIA agents. But he soon discovers that he did far more than intervene. He has placed himself dead square in the middle of a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of the U.S. government.
Winter Kills
Richard Condon - 1974
Timothy Kegan is shot in a Philadelphia motorcade; a presidential commission condemns a lone psychopath as the killer. Fourteen years later, Tim's half-brother, Nick, learns through a deathbed confession that Tim was the victim of a mysterious conspiracy. As Nick attempts to find the real assassin, he encounters oil kings, movie queens, venal police, organized crime, the CIA, and labor unions -- all eager for power and control. The ending is guaranteed to surprise and horrify!
Agent of Influence
Russell Hamilton - 2009
Born in Cairo, Egypt, he is orphaned before moving to the United States with his adopted father, where he lives the American Dream. He goes to Yale and is elected to be the Congressman from Nevada in his early 20s. In 1994, he leads a movement to amend the constitution to allow foreign-born citizens to be elected to the Presidency of the United States. Ten years later, he reaches the zenith of his power as the new President-Elect. But Hardin has a dark side to his personality, and the FBI's vetting process for candidates is running into a wall. As the election heats up, CIA agent Anna Starks is sent to Cairo to try to dig into candidate Hardin's childhood. As the transition of power begins, defeated President Allan Gray, concerned with what the information on Hardin's childhood means, authorizes a secret mission to Las Vegas. To aid with this secret mission, Anna enlists the help of new CIA recruit Alex Bryce. Agent of Influence takes the two CIA agents through Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, Reno, Cairo, Louisville, and Washington, D.C. as they race against time to piece together the President-Elect's sinister past before it is too late. What they find could alter the landscape of the United States forever.
The Rhythm Section
Mark Burnell - 1999
Falling into a downward spiral of prostitution, drugs and drink, she is picked up by a journalist who has discovered that it was a bomb that caused the crash. And it is his murder that pulls her out of herself.The Rhythm Section is not a thriller about the hunt for a terrorist, although that is the path Stephanie takes, and it’s not a story about revenge, although justice for her family is her initial motivation. Rather, The Rhythm Section is the story of Stephanie’s attempt to reclaim herself. She has to rediscover who she is through a series of roles that she is forced to play; she is never herself. As a prostitute, she is Lisa, the chemical blonde. Later, she is Petra Reuter, German anarchist turned mercenary terrorist. Sometimes, she is Marina Gaudenzi, a Swiss businesswoman, or she’s Susan Branch, an American student, or Elizabeth Shepherd, an English management consultant.But whoever she is, she’s never herself because her life depends on her being someone else. This is the way she is trained by the intelligence service that recruits her, but it’s also the way she’s taught herself to be; being someone else has always worked for her and so it does now, until she begins to fall in love for the first time with Frank White. This undermines her completely and poses new questions: which of the many people she has become is the one to have fallen in love? Stephanie? Petra? Or one of the others? With whom has Frank fallen in love? Marina? Or the real Stephanie? More than anything, The Rhythm Section is about a catastrophic crisis of identity.
Hallowed be thy Name
Anthony Hulse - 2014
Father Driscoll pursues Ethan, along with journalist Pamela Hutchins; their intentions differing. After worldwide publicity, the Church and various religious leaders attempt to thwart the man who claims he can heal the sick. Ethan alleges he is visited by Moroni, an apparent holy vision. Gangster, Abdul Rahim sees the financial potential and pursues Ethan to India and Africa, where his cult is thriving. A series of macabre deaths follow Ethan in his quest. Is he really heaven sent, or is he a servant of evil? A frightening tale of deceit, treachery and dishonour. Not for the faint-hearted.
Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State
Ali H. Soufan - 2017
In Anatomy of Terror, former FBI special agent and New York Times best-selling author Ali Soufan dissects Osama bin Laden’s brand of jihadi terrorism and its major offshoots, revealing how these organizations were formed, how they operate, their strengths, and—crucially—their weaknesses. This riveting account examines the new Islamic radicalism through the stories of its flag-bearers, including a U.S. Air Force colonel who once served Saddam Hussein, a provincial bookworm who declared himself caliph of all Muslims, and bin Laden’s own beloved son Hamza, a prime candidate to lead the organization his late father founded.Anatomy of Terror lays bare the psychology and inner workings of al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and their spawn, and shows how the spread of terror can be stopped.Winner of the Airey Neave Memorial Book Prize
Red Cell
Mark E. Henshaw - 2012
There she’s paired with Jonathan Burke, a straitlaced analyst who has alienated his colleagues with his unorthodox methods and a knack for always being right, political consequences be damned. When a raid on Chinese spies in Taiwan ends in a shoot-out and the release of a deadly chemical, CIA director Kathy Cooke turns to the Red Cell to figure out why China is ready to invade the island nation without any fear of reprisal from the US Navy. Stryker and Burke’s only lead is the top CIA asset in China, code named Pioneer. But when Pioneer reports that Chinese security has him under surveillance, Stryker is offered a chance for redemption with a highly dangerous mission: extract Pioneer from China before he’s arrested and executed. The answers he holds could mean the difference between peace in the Pacific or another world war.From CIA headquarters to the White House to a Navy carrier in the South China Sea and the dark alleyways of Beijing, Red Cell takes readers on a whirlwind race against time as Stryker and Burke work to save Pioneer and discover the hidden threat to America’s power: China’s top-secret weapon.CIA analyst Mark Henshaw infuses expert knowledge of the intelligence world into a pulse-pounding plot to create a fascinating, authentic, and unforgettable read.
Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Steve Coll - 2018
While the US was trying to quell extremists, a highly secretive and compartmentalized wing of I.S.I., known as "Directorate S," was covertly training, arming, and seeking to legitimize the Taliban, in order to enlarge Pakistan's sphere of influence. After 9/11, when fifty-nine countries, led by the U. S., deployed troops or provided aid to Afghanistan in an effort to flush out the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the U.S. was set on an invisible slow-motion collision course with Pakistan.Today we know that the war in Afghanistan would falter badly because of military hubris at the highest levels of the Pentagon, the drain on resources and provocation in the Muslim world caused by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and corruption. But more than anything, as Coll makes painfully clear, the war in Afghanistan was doomed because of the failure of the United States to apprehend the motivations and intentions of I.S.I.'s "Directorate S". This was a swirling and shadowy struggle of historic proportions, which endured over a decade and across both the Bush and Obama administrations, involving multiple secret intelligence agencies, a litany of incongruous strategies and tactics, and dozens of players, including some of the most prominent military and political figures. A sprawling American tragedy, the war was an open clash of arms but also a covert melee of ideas, secrets, and subterranean violence. Coll excavates this grand battle, which took place away from the gaze of the American public. With unsurpassed expertise, original research, and attention to detail, he brings to life a narrative at once vast and intricate, local and global, propulsive and painstaking. This is the definitive explanation of how America came to be so badly ensnared in an elaborate, factional, and seemingly interminable conflict in South Asia. Nothing less than a forensic examination of the personal and political forces that shape world history, Directorate S is a complete masterpiece of both investigative and narrative journalism.
What Will People Say?
Rehana Rossouw - 2015
Hanover Park. The heart of the Cape Flats. It is 1986. Michael Jackson and Brenda Fassie rule every hi-fi. Princess Di and George Michael hairstyles are all the rage. There are plans to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 1976 student uprising.Neville and Magda Fourie live in Magnolia Court with their three children. They are trying to ‘raise them decent’ in a township festering with gang wars and barricaded with burning tyres. Suzette, the eldest, is beautiful and determined to escape her family’s poverty. Nicky, the sensitive middle child, has ambitions to use her intellect as a way out. Anthony, the only son, attracted by power and wealth, is lured away from his family by a gangster. In What Will People Say? a rich variety of township characters – the preachers, the teachers, the gangsters and the defeated – come to life in vivid language as they eke out their lives in the shadows of grey concrete blocks of flats.Which members of the Fourie family will thrive, which ones will not survive?Generously spiced with Cape Flats slang; lots of vivid and gritty description that give an authentic feel to the story; plenty of plot – the writer draws us in and makes us curious about what will happen next; and very human characters we come to care about.
The Man In Milan
Vito Racanelli - 2020
Turner begin investigating the Sutton Place murder of an Italian air force pilot, the last thing they expect is that they will and find themselves sucked into the potential cover-up of the Ustica massacre, the most horrific aviation crime in Italian history, in which all 81 souls on board perished, where Italian President Francesco Cossiga blamed a missile deployed by the French Navy for the disaster.But as they begin investigating, Rossi, recovering from a broken marriage, and Turner, an African-American opera buff, poet, and former lawyer with ambitions to be mayor, come up against NYPD bureaucratic obstacles and stonewalling by the Italian Consulate in NYC. Lieutenant Laura Muro, the policewoman sister of the victim, comes to New York to aid the investigation, but soon the trio finds themselves in the crosshairs of the Gladio, Italy’s powerful, shadowy political cabal whose reach extends to the highest reaches of New York political and ruling class.
The Secret Agent
Joseph Conrad - 1907
When Verloc is reluctantly involved in an anarchist plot to blow up the Greenwich Observatory things go disastrously wrong, and what appears to be "a simple tale" proves to involve politicians, policemen, foreign diplomats, and London's fashionable society in the darkest and most surprising interrelations.Based on the text which Conrad's first English readers enjoyed, this new edition includes a full and up-to-date bibliography, a comprehensive chronology and a critical introduction which describes Conrad's great London novel as the realization of a "monstrous town," a place of idiocy, madness, criminality, and savage butchery. It also discusses contemporary anarchist activity in the UK, imperialism, and Conrad's narrative techniques.
The Shield of Darius
Allen Kent - 2012
Ben’s senses send him reeling into his own past; to a place both exhilarating and terrifying. As Sager struggles to determine where he is and why he and his cellmate are being held, Christopher Falen, a covert agent of the CIA offshoot, Unit 1, uncovers a disturbing pattern of unexplained American tourist disappearances, seemingly vanishing without a trace.Two paths cross as Falen’s investigation and Sager’s desperate will to survive draw them both into the deadly web of the Shield of Darius. A timely and relevant thriller, The Shield of Darius takes the reader on a journey through the maze of international espionage and politics between the United States and the Middle East and poses the question: Who can be trusted?
A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband, Danny Pearl
Mariane Pearl - 2003
Why he was in Karachi; how he saw his role as an international journalist: why he was singled out for kidnapping; and where the incredible search effort led - are the subject of Mariane Pearl's book. A journalist in her own right, Mariane is, as was her husband, profoundly committed to the idea that a more informed public makes for a better world, and to the idea that risks are taken to uncover a story. A superb writer, she presents a truly illuminating tale - including her own crucial role in the investigative team, where she was responsible for negotiating unprecedented cooperation between the FBI and Pakistani intelligence and able to forge alliances with an array of people, from the Karachi chief of police to George Bush. A Mighty Heart is an extraordinary book - a fitting tribute to a dedicated reporter and a profound and heartbreaking love story.
Nobody Killed Her
Sabyn Javeri - 2017
Intelligence agencies, opposition leaders, the Army top brass, her closest relatives – all seem to be shifting in their chairs even as special investigative teams gear up to file a report. Conspiracy theories abound for there were many who stood to gain if she pulled out of the imminent elections. The needle of suspicion points most immediately to Madam Shah’s close confidante Nazneen Khan, who was seen sitting right beside her in the convoy and, oddly, escaped the bomb blast unscathed. Sabyn Javeri’s tale of intense friendship between two ambitious women unfolds in a country steeped in fanaticism and patriarchy. Set against a backdrop of intrigue and political machinations, this is a novel about love, loyalty, obsession and deception. Nobody Kills Her is dark noir meets pacey courtroom drama. An electrifying debut you will rave about to everyone you meet.