Richard Clarke - what's he up to ?

Sine Pari · Oct 4, 2005

Writing spy fiction it seems

How fitting

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=/ref=cm_lm_asin/103-3567732-2228621?v=glance

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
It's 2010, and the newly established Republic of Islamyah;the former Saudi Arabia;is trying to destabilize Bahrain: the Diplomat Hotel has been bombed, and, as the first chapter of this intense debut thriller closes, the Crowne Plaza is "pancaking." Meanwhile, the deposed House of Saud is holed up in Houston; the Chinese are providing arms and training to Islamyah; the Iranians have the bomb. Secretary of Defense Henry Conrad thinks the time is ripe to invade Islamyah and seize its oil, for which the U.S. is locked in deadly competition with China. Cooler heads in the U.S. (and British) hierarchies are very, very alarmed. Sound familiar? Clarke's Against All Enemies delivered an apostate critique of the Bush administration's counterterrorism efforts, along with a vision of the future very much like today. The writing's nothing special; what is special is Clarke's passionate and deftly detailed version of the present, albeit one told in terms of its consequences. It's a brilliant conceit, and though it's sometimes drowned out by the din of various axes being ground ("It''s 68 degrees [in Washington]on January 28 and the White House still claims that global warming isn't a problem?"), the story is crowded with terrific double crosses, defections and deceptions. They're icing, though: Clarke's dramatic micro explanations of how things "really" work;from a hand who served Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and both Bushes;are the true story. This is the first novel to shift all the way from Clancy's Cold War to the present war on terror.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
In the Reagan administration, Clarke was the deputy assistant to the secretary of state for intelligence and served as the assistant secretary of state for politico-military affairs in the first Bush administration. He served for eight years as a special assistant to President Clinton and served as national coordinator of security and counter-terrorism for Clinton and for President George W. Bush. With that experience and probably counting on name recognition, Clarke has written his first novel, a geopolitical tale set five years into the future. It deals with a coup that overthrows a number of Saudi Arabian sheiks, the frantic need to procure oil, and the threat of nuclear war by both the U.S and countries in the Middle East. The large cast of characters includes members of British intelligence, the U.S. National Security Agency, the Secret Service, Navy SEALs, and Iranian Revolutionary Guards--an equal number of good guys and bad guys. With a large print-run planned, the publisher is expecting big sales; and librarians can expect high demand. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Is this life imitating art, or the other way around ??