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Missing Jack Bauer? Read John Errett’s book
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Reviewed by STEPHANIE GARBER
Contributing Writer
The Owl and the Hawk. By John Errett. Free Enterprise Press. Punta Gorda, Fla. 2008. 342 pp. $19.95.
Attention all fans of the hit TV series “24.” If you, like me, have been on the verge of withdrawal from the weekly adrenaline rushes after last season’s cancellation – I have found the antidote!
The Owl and the Hawk by John Errett, an author I had never heard of before, had my pulse picking up by the end of the first page and my adrenaline spiking by the end of the first chapter.
Like “24,” The Owl and the Hawk is not for the squeamish. There will be blood (to borrow a phrase from a recent film). There will be graphic scenes of torture. There will be vivid depictions of war. While it is a work of fiction, The Owl and the Hawk addresses the all-too-real consequences of Islamic extremism – the unspeakable devastation caused by suicide bombers in Israel, the grit and sacrifice of those serving the country in the war on terror, the horror of perverted “justice” meted out in countries where women can be flogged for flashing an ankle, and stonings that are still an acceptable form of justice.
Far from being a gratuitous gorefest, The Owl and the Hawk is a plea for understanding for the majority of peace-loving Muslims, who suffer humiliation and prejudice because of their extremist brethren.
The main character, Alan Davis, is a billionaire American businessman married to an Islamic woman. After Davis’s best friend is murdered by a suicide bomber on a business trip en route to Riyadh, Davis decides to use his own considerable resources to wage war on terrorism.
Because he does not feel comfortable asking another man to do something he would not be willing to do himself, Davis embarks on a mission to Afghanistan to take out an especially barbaric Taliban leader. He is caught, and, well, let’s just say the Taliban are the kind of captors who make waterboarding look like an aquatic sport.
At the end, Davis introduces a very nonfiction strategy for defeating terrorism. The “POP Plan” consists of a call to peace-loving Muslims to reclaim their religion from those who pervert it, a concerted effort of business and industry to cripple extremism, and a passport acceptance program that would hold countries responsible for terrorist acts carried out by their citizens.
Regarding the passport plan, Errett writes, “If the POP Plan had been in effect on 9/11, how might the outcome of that day been changed? Since 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis carrying Saudi Arabian passports, a nation well-known for financing jihad both inside and outside its borders, the Saudi government would have to pay something close to $150 billion. And they certainly have the money.”
Interested? The first chapter of this riveting book is online at www.theowl
andthehawk.com. The website also offers the book at a discount and promises that for each copy purchased, a copy will be sent free of charge to a wounded veteran with the purchaser’s compliments – an excellent opportunity to read about terrorism and thank someone who has sacrificed in the war to defeat it.
sgarber@cjn.org
Contributing Writer
The Owl and the Hawk. By John Errett. Free Enterprise Press. Punta Gorda, Fla. 2008. 342 pp. $19.95.
Attention all fans of the hit TV series “24.” If you, like me, have been on the verge of withdrawal from the weekly adrenaline rushes after last season’s cancellation – I have found the antidote!
The Owl and the Hawk by John Errett, an author I had never heard of before, had my pulse picking up by the end of the first page and my adrenaline spiking by the end of the first chapter.
Like “24,” The Owl and the Hawk is not for the squeamish. There will be blood (to borrow a phrase from a recent film). There will be graphic scenes of torture. There will be vivid depictions of war. While it is a work of fiction, The Owl and the Hawk addresses the all-too-real consequences of Islamic extremism – the unspeakable devastation caused by suicide bombers in Israel, the grit and sacrifice of those serving the country in the war on terror, the horror of perverted “justice” meted out in countries where women can be flogged for flashing an ankle, and stonings that are still an acceptable form of justice.
Far from being a gratuitous gorefest, The Owl and the Hawk is a plea for understanding for the majority of peace-loving Muslims, who suffer humiliation and prejudice because of their extremist brethren.
The main character, Alan Davis, is a billionaire American businessman married to an Islamic woman. After Davis’s best friend is murdered by a suicide bomber on a business trip en route to Riyadh, Davis decides to use his own considerable resources to wage war on terrorism.
Because he does not feel comfortable asking another man to do something he would not be willing to do himself, Davis embarks on a mission to Afghanistan to take out an especially barbaric Taliban leader. He is caught, and, well, let’s just say the Taliban are the kind of captors who make waterboarding look like an aquatic sport.
At the end, Davis introduces a very nonfiction strategy for defeating terrorism. The “POP Plan” consists of a call to peace-loving Muslims to reclaim their religion from those who pervert it, a concerted effort of business and industry to cripple extremism, and a passport acceptance program that would hold countries responsible for terrorist acts carried out by their citizens.
Regarding the passport plan, Errett writes, “If the POP Plan had been in effect on 9/11, how might the outcome of that day been changed? Since 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis carrying Saudi Arabian passports, a nation well-known for financing jihad both inside and outside its borders, the Saudi government would have to pay something close to $150 billion. And they certainly have the money.”
Interested? The first chapter of this riveting book is online at www.theowl
andthehawk.com. The website also offers the book at a discount and promises that for each copy purchased, a copy will be sent free of charge to a wounded veteran with the purchaser’s compliments – an excellent opportunity to read about terrorism and thank someone who has sacrificed in the war to defeat it.
sgarber@cjn.org
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