I was waiting at a friend's apartment before we could go out together. As usually happens in such appointments the person got delayed and I spotted this book lying on a table. By the time we were all set to go, I had finished a good three chapters of the book. The most famous boogeyman of the west : Bin Laden had come in as a character and an attack plan was being hatched against the US. I forgot all about it this book after that and it was only later in the library that I picked it up. Very ordinary fare is what I felt about the whole thing.The plot is rather straightforward : Arab terrorists smuggle a nuclear bomb into NY and make an outrageous demand of America. A lot of investigation and high profile meetings later, America ends up saving itself and the world. Everyone lives happily thereafter ! This book features an ensemble cast : George W, Condolezza Rice, Pervez Musharraf, Ariel Sharon, Osama Bin Laden and a cameo by Saddam Hussein. The kind of story where a fictional plot is placed on real characters. The strength of the story is in the amount of research that the authors have done. It is fiction that works on a frighteningly possible scenario and the authors have ensured that they detail out the nightmare that will ensue if such a case came to life in reality. The weakside however is that while the authors are brilliant writers of non-fiction, their fiction leaves a lot to be desired. Some of the dialog breaks down to worn down cliches and cyclostyled words which kills off a lot of joy. Comparing authors and their writing style is sacrilegious but this is terrain where Fredrick Forsyth or Robert Ludlum would have been surefooted. Colins and Lapierre make their prose work but not with the glitz and glamor that thriller writers usually bring to the table. An absolutely average thriller.Tail-end : Ace actor from India - Kamal Hassan came out with a movie named Vishwaroopam in early 2013 which told of the exploits of an Indian intelligence agent in NY. I remember seeing the movie and thinking that the ideas this man had in terms of the plot are quite unique. Now that I have been through this book, I know where his ideas stemmed from ! Oh no, I did not use the word plagiarism anywhere did I ?
What do You think about Is New York Burning? (2005)?
