I love to read. I read just about everything I can get my hands on – from mysteries to histories, tech books to cook books. My favorite for light reading are in the techo-thriller genre…books about heroic Americans fighting the spies and soliders of other countries or terrorists. Glenn Beck (one of my favorite radio/TV guys) had author Christopher Reich on his show recently, to plug the book Rules of Deception. Beck mentioned that he’d not yet read the book (never a good idea to plug something you haven’t read, Glenn), but he was amazed that, as the story revolved around Iran’s attempts to enrich uranium for the express purpose of building nuclear weapons, that the New York Times had given the book a glowing review. Little did I know when I bought it that there was a good reason the NY Times loved it. Ordinarily, I would avoid spoling the ending of a book. I’m gonna violate that rule this time, for a reason that will become apparent as you read this. So, if you want to read it without knowing the ending, stop reading this review now.
Still with me? Okay. In Rules of Deception, the Iranians are Hell-bent to enrich uranium to build nuclear weapons. There’s also a plot to bring down an Israeli commercial jetliner with a drone carrying a payload of Semtex plastic explosives. So far, so good. The problem is, both plots are the work of Americans – specifically a U.S. Major General/war hero/burn victim-cum-born again Christian who heads up a black ops organization within the Dept. of Defense sells the Iranians centrifuges to allow them to enrich the uranium as well as four nukes they can use to defend themselves whilst they work on their own nukes. The General’s motivation is to trigger a war between Iran, Israel and the USA, so that he can trigger Armageddon and thus set the stage for the triumphant return of Christ.
Pause with me for a nanosecond.
No wonder the NYT loved the book. Just take the President of Iran and his crazy “12th Imam” crap, change the character to an American general, change the religon to “fundamentalist Christian” and blame America for everything. Perfect.
The book is not particularly well written, either. Several times, characters ask questions like “how much ammo do you have left,” and get a reply “two clips.” Newsflash: semi-auto pistols do not use “clips.” They use “magazines.” No soldier, CIA operative, or FBI agent would ever use the word “clip” as a subsitute for “magazine.” That’s a mistake only someone unfamiliar with guns would make. (That’s not the only glaring error – just an eggregious example.)
So do yourself a favor and skip Rules of Deception. Unless you’re a card-carrying, blame American first, secular humanist Liberal. In that case, read on, moron.
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