Sovereign Order — James Macomber

Terrorists from around the world Sarin gas from Syrian stockpiles Innocents gathered at a revered sporting event unaware of impending disaster Today's headlines? Yes. But also the heart of James Macomber's fourth novel "Sovereign Order" where, once again, Macomber has written about events in the world before they even occur. The sublimely evil villain is Rashid al-Nassef, long thought dead but actually living under Iranian protection, After several years of chafing in his "velvet prison" he receives the go-ahead to launch what will be the most destructive and horrific terrorist attack in history. The assault is multi-leveled in both its substance and in its actors. The "martyrs" who will execute the plan come from many places; a Bosnian youth designated by al-Nassef to set off the first in a series of assaults, the young Belgian woman whose fanaticism as a Christian leads her to seek the love of Mohammed, the tyrannical and abusive Albanian Muslim and his wife and child who will effect the diversionary explosion on the day of the race, the Scots lawyer seduced into Islam as a youth, and finally, al-Nassef himself who will unleash the final act of horror - a multi-layered attack on the Monaco Grand Prix intended to kill tens of thousand immediately and leave an entire nation unlivable for decades to come.