Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Damascus Countdown by Joel Rosenberg

All eyes are on the Middle East. Israel has successfully launched a first strike on Iran, taking out all of their nuclear sites and six of their nuclear warheads—and causing The Twelfth Imam to order a full-scale retaliation. U.S. President William Jackson threatens to support a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the Jewish State for unprovoked and unwarranted acts of aggression.

Meanwhile, CIA operative David Shirazi has infiltrated the Iranian regime and intercepted information indicating that two Iranian nuclear warheads survived the attack and have been moved to a secure and undisclosed location. In danger not only from the ongoing missile strikes on Iran but also from the increasingly hostile and suspicious governments of multiple countries, David and his team are in a race against time to find the remaining nuclear warheads before disaster strikes.


My review:
    This was a book that I had been eagerly waiting to come out. Rosenberg's books are always real page turners, so I held off reading it until I could read it through to the end if I needed to. The book is 480 pages, so I didn't plan on reading it in one sitting, but that is exactly what I did.

   The whole series is really, really good, but this last book beat them all. The way it ended, I assume this is the final book in the series, and it was a great conclusion to a great series. Rosenberg knows his stuff, and though his books are fictional, his fiction all too often comes close to being true. I learned a lot about Middle East relations and Israel's place in it all. The book had a fictional president of the USA that sounded a lot like the one we have now, a president that is not pro-Israel and not likely to help Israel defend herself against attacks.

   The book gives a sobering look at what could happen in the Middle East if Iran would decide to use their nuclear warfare against Israel. I don't want to give away anything for those who have not read the book and may read it, but I feel the author paints a very realistic picture of what that would be like.

   I very much liked the main character in these books, David Shirazi, and was glad to see him back in this book, front and center. I couldn't have enjoyed this book any more than I did. It was an interesting, gripping, and exciting read, and yet a sobering read. I would recommend it to anyone, though you do need to read the three books in order.

About the author:

Joel C. Rosenberg is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels—The Last Jihad, The Last Days, The Ezekiel Option, The Copper Scroll, Dead Heat, The Twelfth Imam, and The Tehran Initiative—and five nonfiction books, Epicenter, Inside the Revolution, Implosion,Israel at War, and The Invested Life, with nearly 3 million copies sold. The Ezekiel Option received the Gold Medallion award as the "Best Novel of 2006" from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. Joel is the producer of two documentary films based on his nonfiction books. He is also the founder of The Joshua Fund, a nonprofit educational and charitable organization to mobilize Christians to "bless Israel and her neighbors in the name of Jesus" with food, clothing, medical supplies, and other humanitarian relief.

As a communications advisor, Joel has worked with a number of U.S. and Israeli leaders, including Steve Forbes, Rush Limbaugh, Natan Sharansky, and Benjamin Netanyahu. As an author, he has been interviewed on hundreds of radio and TV programs, including ABC's Nightline,CNN Headline News, FOX News Channel, The History Channel, MSNBC, The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Sean Hannity Show, and The Glenn Beck Show. He has been profiled by the New York Times, the Washington Times, the Jerusalem Post, and Worldmagazine. He has addressed audiences all over the world, including those in Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Russia, and the Philippines. He has also spoken at the White House, the Pentagon, and to members of Congress.

In 2008, Joel designed and hosted the first Epicenter Conference in Jerusalem. The event drew two thousand Christians who wanted to "learn, pray, give, and go" to the Lord's work in Israel and the Middle East. Subsequent Epicenter Conferences have been held in San Diego (2009); Manila, Philippines (2010); Philadelphia (2010); Jerusalem (2011); and Albuquerque, New Mexico (2012). The live webcast of the Philadelphia conference drew some thirty-four thousand people from more than ninety countries to listen to speakers such as Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon; pastors from the U.S., Israel, and Iran; Lt. General (ret.) Jerry Boykin; Kay Arthur; Janet Parshall; Tony Perkins; and Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of one of the founders of Hamas who has renounced Islam and terrorism and become a follower of Jesus Christ and a friend of both Israelis and Palestinians.

The son of a Jewish father and a Gentile mother, Joel is an evangelical Christian with a passion to make disciples of all nations and teach Bible prophecy. A graduate of Syracuse University with a BFA in filmmaking, he is married, has four sons, and lives near Washington, D.C.

To visit Joel's weblog—or sign up for his free weekly "Flash Traffic" e-mails—please visit www.joelrosenberg.com.

Please also visit these other websites:

www.joshuafund.net

www.epicenterconference.com

and Joel's "Epicenter Team" and the Joel C. Rosenberg public profile page on Facebook.

Damascus Countdown is available from Tyndale Publishing.

Thanks to Tyndale for the review copy.

0 comments: