Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Bantam (1994), Edition: First Edition, 544 pages
Description
A Gulf War spy story featuring Mike Martin, an Arabic-speaking British agent. He is sent to Baghdad after the invasion of Kuwait to contact a mole in Saddam Hussein's entourage, but the information he obtains is so unbelievable, his superiors decide he's been duped. When they realize their mistake, Martin's mission becomes even more dangerous.
User reviews
LibraryThing member abbottthomas
This is an agreeable bit of fairly ancient 'history'. As usual with Forsyth there is a good mixture of fact, reasonable speculation and plausible fiction. The book is set in the time of the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. It begins with the story of Gerald Bull, a brilliant ballistics
With the invasion of Kuwait accomplished, the diplomatic negotiations begin, as does the preparation of Desert Shield, the build up of Coalition forces to protect the Saudi/Kuwait border. Forsyth gives us a lot of detail on this, looking at the actions of many real people and real organisations. He is good at sounding convincing: the reader believes that the auxiliary tanks of the USAF F-15E Eagle fighter hold 4,000 pounds of fuel or that the Saudi Defence Ministry in Riyadh is 400 metres long and 100 feet high and so finds it easy to accept that Benyamin Netanyahu is pushed into disclosing Mossad's asset in Baghdad by a very rich Jewish-American banker or that Mikhail Gorbachov provided cover for a British agent at the behest of two Western spooks. His speculations and fiction start here with the US/UK need to have on-the-ground intelligence, first from Kuwait and later from Baghdad. We get to know a typical Forsyth hero, Mike Martin, a SAS major with perfect Arabic and an uncanny ability to melt into the background. We are treated to exciting times on the streets of Kuwait City and Baghdad, a lot of black-ops and flying detail and a neat Mossad sting operation in Vienna. It's not a spoiler to confirm that the book conforms to history and Desert Storm rolls on to a sort of victory.
Forsyth clearly has no problem including his personal feelings in the book, from half a page describing a rugby match between Haileybury and Tonbridge (his old school) to a clear judgement of Margaret Thatcher's political demise at the hands of colleagues of "ineffable incompetence". He closes the book with a postscript decrying the madness of advanced industrial nations selling sophisticated weaponry to "the crazed, the aggressive and the dangerous" and opining that, despite all the high-tech electronic information gathering, there is still a need for the human spy. He writes of the range of 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' (WMD) possessed by Saddam and the Iraqi's skill in concealing them. I guess he would have preferred Saddam to have been ousted by Desert Storm but he left a book which might have been a manual for George Dubbuyah and Blair in their attempts to justify the Second Gulf War 13 years later.
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engineer, who believed that large-bore guns - 'superguns' - could be used to send payloads into earth orbit. After working for the Canadian government and the US Army for some years his ideas fell out of favour and funding was withdrawn. Bull continued his work with funding from several interested governments including South Africa, China and Yugoslavia and finally Iraq. The story of the so-called Babylon Gun is well-known: Bull arranged for different parts of the gun to be constructed in various countries in an attempt to conceal their true purpose. Many of these were intercepted by the authorities as they were in transit to Iraq. The size of the barrel was such that the gun could not have been fired unless it was fixed on a solid surface thus making varying the aim of the gun impossible. Western experts consequently discounted the Babylon Gun as an effective weapon, nonetheless confiscating the parts that came to light. A few months before Saddam's army moved into Kuwait, Bull was assassinated in Brussels, with Mossad operatives favourites as perpetrators. That much is factual, although Forsyth lays the blame for the murder elsewhere.With the invasion of Kuwait accomplished, the diplomatic negotiations begin, as does the preparation of Desert Shield, the build up of Coalition forces to protect the Saudi/Kuwait border. Forsyth gives us a lot of detail on this, looking at the actions of many real people and real organisations. He is good at sounding convincing: the reader believes that the auxiliary tanks of the USAF F-15E Eagle fighter hold 4,000 pounds of fuel or that the Saudi Defence Ministry in Riyadh is 400 metres long and 100 feet high and so finds it easy to accept that Benyamin Netanyahu is pushed into disclosing Mossad's asset in Baghdad by a very rich Jewish-American banker or that Mikhail Gorbachov provided cover for a British agent at the behest of two Western spooks. His speculations and fiction start here with the US/UK need to have on-the-ground intelligence, first from Kuwait and later from Baghdad. We get to know a typical Forsyth hero, Mike Martin, a SAS major with perfect Arabic and an uncanny ability to melt into the background. We are treated to exciting times on the streets of Kuwait City and Baghdad, a lot of black-ops and flying detail and a neat Mossad sting operation in Vienna. It's not a spoiler to confirm that the book conforms to history and Desert Storm rolls on to a sort of victory.
Forsyth clearly has no problem including his personal feelings in the book, from half a page describing a rugby match between Haileybury and Tonbridge (his old school) to a clear judgement of Margaret Thatcher's political demise at the hands of colleagues of "ineffable incompetence". He closes the book with a postscript decrying the madness of advanced industrial nations selling sophisticated weaponry to "the crazed, the aggressive and the dangerous" and opining that, despite all the high-tech electronic information gathering, there is still a need for the human spy. He writes of the range of 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' (WMD) possessed by Saddam and the Iraqi's skill in concealing them. I guess he would have preferred Saddam to have been ousted by Desert Storm but he left a book which might have been a manual for George Dubbuyah and Blair in their attempts to justify the Second Gulf War 13 years later.
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LibraryThing member scottcholstad
The Fist of God is a convoluted plot masterfully weaved together by Forsyth to make it a rather brilliant thriller. It centers around Washington, London, Baghdad, Vienna, and Saudi Arabia. The CIA and MI6 play key roles, as do the British SAS, the Mossad, and Iraqi intelligence forces. The book is
In this book, SAS major Mike Martin is infiltrated into occupied Kuwait to wage a terrorism campaign before being pulled out and sent into Baghdad itself, to deal with a super high level spy the Allies have in place. It's incredibly dangerous and the author writes a great deal of tension into the book. My only complaint was with the seduction of Austrian spinster, Edith, and her eventual death, which I thought a touch cruel and unusual for the author. I thought about giving the book four stars instead of five because it's obviously outdated and a lot of the information in the book was quite likely wrong (it was published in 1994). But Forsyth did the best with what he had to work with at the time and I've given other dated books high marks, so I shouldn't penalize an otherwise excellent book just for that. This is a good thriller, really gripping. Recommended.
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about the first Gulf War and what it would have been like, and was like -- theoretically -- for Iraq to possess a large number of WMD. Including an atomic bomb. You see, the brilliance of Forsyth is his ability to weave fact and fiction so effortlessly that you don't know where one ends and the other begins. You know Saddam had poison gas. But how much? As much as the book indicates? I doubt it, but I don't know.In this book, SAS major Mike Martin is infiltrated into occupied Kuwait to wage a terrorism campaign before being pulled out and sent into Baghdad itself, to deal with a super high level spy the Allies have in place. It's incredibly dangerous and the author writes a great deal of tension into the book. My only complaint was with the seduction of Austrian spinster, Edith, and her eventual death, which I thought a touch cruel and unusual for the author. I thought about giving the book four stars instead of five because it's obviously outdated and a lot of the information in the book was quite likely wrong (it was published in 1994). But Forsyth did the best with what he had to work with at the time and I've given other dated books high marks, so I shouldn't penalize an otherwise excellent book just for that. This is a good thriller, really gripping. Recommended.
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LibraryThing member gbwalsh
From the behind-the-scenes decision making of the Allies to the secret meetings of Saddam Hussein's war cabinet, from the brave American fliers running their dangerous missions over Iraq to the heroic young spy planted deep in the heart of Baghdad, Forsyth's incomparable storytelling skill keeps
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the suspense at a breakneck pace. Show Less
LibraryThing member gmillar
This was another Forsyth novel that I had trouble putting down at night. The science of the mega-rifle characterised as "The Fist of God" seems a little far-fetched, or at least impractical, to me but this is a rattling good yarn. And memorable, especially in today's world (early 2000s) when we
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citizens of the western world are being soaked in the propaganda of anti-islam energy. Based mostly in Iran. Show Less
LibraryThing member www.snigel.nu
I liked Frederick Forsyth immensly for a while in my teens. I liked this book mainly because I thought it was a realistic description of special forces operations during the Gulf War, but I have no idea about what I would think of it today.
LibraryThing member parthbakshi
The best book i feel ever written on action behind enemy lines during the gulf war ,Though it is kind of pseudo fiction ,one gets a true account of what went on during the gulf war.Once you begin reading it ,You cant keep it down.
LibraryThing member WinonaBaines
Story of Gulf War - premise is that Hussain had nuclear capability. SAS officer was able infiltrate Iraq and find out where bomb located. Lots of fact mixed with fiction - difficult to tell them apart. Great reading, tho
LibraryThing member astrochef
Simply Brilliant
LibraryThing member ElizabethCromb
Story of 1st Gulf War, how it evolved, who was involved and the insights into the thinking and working on all parties involved. An espionage thread as well as a commentary on social mores (gay life), attitudes to global responsibilities for the arming of known regimes that will cause strife for the
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world; the developments in information gathering technology and their use since the end fo the cold war. Show Less
Subjects
Original language
English
Original publication date
1994
ISBN
0671633635 / 9780671633639