The Great Satan — David Black

The first of his compelling new Shadow Squadron series, best selling author David Black has produced his own fictional nightmare scenario: What if the Iraqi weapons that were said to be dismantled in the late 1990s included the ultimate WMD? And what if the deposing of Saddam Hussein left one of his most ruthless military leaders still at large, actively seeking a customer for Iraq's only nuclear bomb? In the bitterly divisive aftermath of the Iraq War, the former political leaders of the UK and USA are condemned as deceitful and mendacious, allegedly fabricating excuses for their martial actions. In The Great Satan, author Black and his main character - Special Forces team leader Pat Farrell - are so close as to be synonymous, both having worked as London taxi drivers during a tenure as Territorial SAS members, ready to be called into action in time of national emergency. The principal difference is that the author is now retired from the forces, while his fictional counterpart is left to contend with 'the real world . . . with direct relevance to the grisly global horrors being perpetrated today.' In The Great Satan, the current world situation meets the page-turning action prose of pulp fiction. The central antagonist is Colonel Jamal Al-Mahdi, veteran of Saddam s campaign against the Kurds, who transports the ultimate hidden WMD to the UK. The nuclear bomb that is the greatest Satan of all, awaiting deployment by a group of young British jihadi at a point where we can only hope fiction diverges entirely from fact . . .