The Lion's Game
by Nelson DeMille
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Book Summary Information
Author: Nelson DeMilleEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-01
ISBN: 0446679097
Number of pages: 464
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Book Reviews of The Lion's Game
Book Review: Review by TheCasual Observer
Summary: 5 Stars
[..]
John Corey, former NYPD detective and current member of the anti-terrorist task force (ATTF) has a rather straightforward task to complete on April 15th. He and his team are to take custody of a terrorist who has turned himself in and transfer the terrorist from LaGuardia airport to a federal facility in New York City. What could possibly go wrong?
Plenty can go wrong, of course. The terrorist, a Libyan named Asad Kahlil, makes quite a splash immediately upon arrival in he United States. Khalil quickly escapes and begins work toward his real mission - a mission that has been many years in the planning. John Corey and his team are a few steps behind Kahlil, and a great cat and mouse game begins. The lion begins to stalk his prey - and the prey have no idea they are being hunted until the very last moment.
The book moves back and forth between the viewpoints of John Corey and Asad Khalil, and also has flashbacks to Khalil's adolescence. This allows DeMille an opportunity to let the reader inside the head of Khalil. We are able to understand why Kahlil acts the way he does - how his past and his country's culture have shaped him as a man. We also get the opportunity to see how a major terrorist campaign is planned and carried out. Asad Khalil has revenge on his mind, and he has brought death to the "land of the infidels".
John Corey and his sidekick, Kate Mayfield, are worthy adversaries for Khalil. Corey is a brilliant detective, but he rubs a lot of people the wrong way. He has some big problems with authority figures and also has a tendency to tell jokes that offend certain ethnic, religious, and gender groups. He has a tendency to operate outside the rules from time to time. Subtlety is not his stock in trade. These are some of the reasons why he is former NYPD, rather than active NYPD. Kate Mayfield, on the other hand, is the shining example of a by-the-books FBI agent. She, too, is a brilliant investigator, but she stays within the rules.
The synergy created by their partnership aids them greatly in working the case. They are a step behind Khalil out of the gate and have to play catch-up. However, they manage to muddle their way through bureaucratic red tape (and some folks who seem to be playing for a different team) and eventually figure out what Kahlil is up to and aggressively give chase in the latter portion of he book, culminating in a final, dramatic showdown.
* * *
I first encountered this book when I stumbled across the audio version in Barnes and Noble. I was about to take off on a solo trip from Illinois to New York State. The audio version of the book appealed to me for two main reasons. It was bargain priced, and it was 25 hours long. The book captivated me for the entire 25 hours.
Since that initial listening, I have listened to the audio version at least two more times, I have read the book twice, and I have listened to the abridged edition of the audio book. I don't make a habit of overdosing on one particular book, so I obviously enjoy this book a lot. The Casual Observer gives this book a rating of "freaking awesome"!
In my opinion, the abridged edition of the audio book falls fall short of the unabridged edition. They had to cut to book from 25 hours to 9, so obviously some of the plot had to be lost. However, I'm not a big fan of the way they made some of the cuts. Also, I much prefer the reading job done by Scott Brick on the unabridged edition to the job done by Boyd Gaines on the abridged edition. Gaines doesn't really do anything wrong, but Brick is simply awesome.
Summary of The Lion's Game
Detective John Corey, last seen in Plum Island, now faces his toughest assignment yet: the pursuit and capture of the world's most dangerous terrorist -- a young Arab known as "The Lion" who has baffled a federal task force and shows no sign of stopping in his quest for revenge against the American pilots who bombed Libya and killed his family. Filled with unrelenting suspense and surprising plot twists at every terrifying turn, THE LION'S GAME is a heartstopping race against time and one of Nelson DeMille's most riveting thrillers.John Corey and Asad Khalil have both lived hard-knock lives. As revealed in Nelson DeMille's monster bestseller Plum Island, the gruff, wisecracking NYPD homicide cop Corey stopped a hail of bullets--but he couldn't stop his wife from walking out on him. Asad, raised under Muammar Qaddafi's eye after his dad's murder, lost his surviving family in the 1986 bombing of Libya. He's heard the nasty rumors about his mom and the colonel, but he aims his rage at the infidels. The boy's got such a gift for terrorism he's earned the nickname "the Lion," and Boris, his vodka-sozzled, sex-addicted émigré mentor, knows precisely how to conduct a murder tour of America one step ahead of the police, the FBI, the CIA, and the ATTF (Anti-Terrorist Task Force), which combines members of all three. A pity Boris must die, but hey, he's an infidel too.
Asad pretends to defect, handcuffed to agents aboard a 747 bound for JFK, and he proves to be a worse seatmate than a siding salesman. Corey and his ATTF colleagues (most conspicuously the FBI's sexy Kate Mayfield, Corey's match in badinage and bad-guy busting) strive to halt Asad's methodical yet unpredictable bloodbath. Skillfully, DeMille alternates chapters told from Asad's and Corey's points of view. DeMille did his authenticity homework: when we're not savoring his gift for wiseacre dialogue in the Corey-Kate chapters, we're sweating alongside Asad on his ghastly, ingenious jihad.
The New York Times put DeMille's social satire on a par with Edith Wharton's, and he's great on the colliding folkways of the feuding, mutually doublecrossing crimebuster institutions. Naturally, he's on the side of the regular-guy flatfoots. "Cops sit on their asses and flip through their folders," he writes. "Feds sit on their derrieres and peruse their dossiers." And the CIA gets it in the shorts, satirically speaking. One deplores the mass murderers, but the book's real bad guys wear the priciest suits.
DeMille reportedly has a $25 million book contract. With fast, funny, absorbing thrillers like The Lion's Game, he's earned it. --Tim Appelo
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