Allah's Scorpion

Right-wing fiction is a fascinating thing to me. For one, I enjoy the praise displayed from critics and other authors of the same genre of anti-terrorist novels. One thing in particular that is enjoyable is when such praise describes how a book should be required reading in Washington DC. Of course, Allah's Scorpion is no exception.

The other thing I enjoy is they are action-packed. Reading one of these books is like watching an action film within a packed movie theater; especially if that movie requires no thought on the watcher's part and has a simplistic philosophy of kicking ass. These are the elements that gets a crowd going. I can imagine the same for a reader who follows the same ideology of the author and his/her fictional show more mouthpiece.

A mistake was made on my part when I decided to read this for fun: Allah's Scorpion is part of a character series of books, much like Clancy's Jack Ryan books. They star a gruff, all-too-serious, patriotic, pro-torture assassin named McGarvey. Of course, he is cut from an older cloth of American ideals. Of course he's out to get the job done. Of course he loves his wife very much – and, of course, he has to inform younger women that “another time and another place, I would”. Yes, McGarvey is the perfect male protagonist. Now, do not get me wrong, he is flawed, but his flaws are his appeal to readers who want to be in his situation and doing what he is getting done, which is essentially killing terrorists.

The plot goes a little bit like this. Osama bin Laden has in his pocket a British Royal Navy Submarine Captain who has an axe to grind and is rather good at shooting scores of people right between the eyes. And I do me scores of people. This guy kills so many people as one person. It is amazing, really.

So, Osama's people get a hold of a submarine, and with the help of Libya (who is holding the Weapons of Mass Destruction that we never found because Saddam gave them all to Libya before we invaded [“Of course!” doth cry suspicious American readers]) is able to arm that Sub with a load of nuclear bombs (and a side of Anthrax for those who try to come aboard the Sub).

Yes. At first I was enjoying the book because it was thoughtless fluff that was rather fun to read. But, toward the end, I couldn't help but see how predictable things were getting and how utterly inane it was becoming.

As I said, though, this is my fault. It's a book from part of a series, and the sort of situation of reading a bad book should not have happen if only I followed the series. (And believe everything the author was saying to be fact rather than just a story).

I am sorry, but I am just not that gullible. show less

Not my favorite of the series.
McGarvey is usually a believable character and the stories are mostly believable as well, but this one seemed a bit over-the-top, though still a typical Hagberg good story.
Also there were several "loose ends" which is unusual.
It feels sort of like the start of a 2 volume arc or trilogy perhaps, which would be cool but there's no indication of such on this site or elsewhere that I've seen.

The author was recommended as being better than Tom Clancy, and the while plot believability is somewhat strained, it's a very respectable espionage thriller and page turner.

read everything of Hagberg!