Last summer, Jon Stewart took a three month hiatus from his nightly The Daily Show gig to travel to the Middle East. The result of his hiatus is Rosewater, a film that marks his first time as director and is adapted from Maziar Bahari's memior Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love,…
An excerpt from The Last Line, a military thriller by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer with William H. Keith (available June 4, 2013). Chris Teller may be the best in the intelligence business, but that doesn’t mean he’s the most popular. Far from it, in fact. While he may be a threat to the status quo,…
It’s so easy in the movies. Our Spy Hero (in a tuxedo if Our Hero’s a he, a spandex catsuit if a she) slips into a posh hotel, creeps stealthily to the penthouse suite, dispatches the arch-villain’s lieutenant with a couple of silenced gunshots or a few boots to the head, then fades into the…
The Sixth Station by Linda Stasi is a thriller involving international politics, terrorism, and a charismatic and potentially deadly, religious leader (available January 22, 2013). The Sixth Station is a fascinating and entertaining book . . . and will keep you guessing even after you’ve read the final page. There’s a big story at the…
The Blood Gospel, a modern thriller with biblical roots, is the first full-length collaboration between James Rollins and Rebecca Cantrell and part of the Order of the Sanguine series (available January 8, 2013). One word of caution before you begin this book: install a seatbelt on your recliner or other favorite reading spot. Otherwise, you’ll…
Father Night by Eric Van Lustbader is a spy thriller in the Jack McClure/Alli Carson series (available September 18, 2012). A rocket propelled grenade missing you by a whisper would shake you up less than this cracking piece of writing. It starts off as one thing then becomes another then just when you settle down,…
You might think the American justice system had some…anomalies. And you’d be right. But we learned today from our friends at Lowering the Bar of a case in Saudi Arabia that’s a real head-scratcher. The case involved a judge who was one of several defendants arrested on bribery and corruption charges. The accused judge told…
(Click here to read Part 1 and the events before the Kuwaiti police station.) To their credit (I suppose), the police let me drive us to the Salwa station in my car. The first thing that I did was contact the duty officer at the US Embassy who, that night, happened to be Dick Wilbur,…
It wasn’t a dark and stormy night. We didn’t get many of those in Kuwait. Maybe two or three a year. Most of the time it was clear and hot. And while it wasn’t the hottest night in my 3+ year tenure in Kuwait, it was absolutely the longest of my life. Which was reasonable…
