A Course To Stay

By Frederick Harrison

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1427631654
• ISBN13: 9781427631657
• Release Date: June 2008
• Publisher: Frederick Harrison Enterprises
• Length: 275 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Course To Stay

Frederick Harrison books are terrific. My first read of Harrison's was An Opaque War. In this first novel, Harrison very successfully combined an insight into contemporary terrorist issues with a suspenseful drama to keep the reader turning the pages. The challenges our government is facing is its efforts to combat terrorism were brought to light in a real and compelling fashion, and the intrigue and suspense of his first novel insured that I had to read his second, A Course To Stay. It certainly did not disappoint. A Course To Stay continued to raise the political issues that are so relevant to our times as we try to deal with Islamic extremism. Simultaneously, I couldn't put the book down as the day-to-day interaction of his characters unfolded. I am already looking forward to his next novel.

I'm not generally a fan of fiction...

I am not generally a fan of fiction. As a devourer of hundreds of pages of daily non-fiction and current affairs, it takes an example of pretty good fiction to pull me away from the real world and convince me to lose myself for a few days in make believe. Author Fred Harrison's novel "A Course to Stay" goes beyond good fiction. Harrison's story picks up immediately after his first novel, "An Opaque War" leaves off. It unfolds across the globe shadowing the footsteps of real-world news stories from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Europe, and Washington D.C. The story itself is compelling and topical, teasing the reader's imagination and making him wonder "Could this stuff actually be happening this way?" Harrison's background in some of America's premier spy agencies certainly allows for the possibility. The plot of the story parallels real-world challenges, but the book is driven as much by its characters as it is the story itself. Harrison's protagonist and Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Philip Bergen serves, one supposes, as the author's own mouthpiece, communicating a lifetime of experience to real-world decision makers. In a post 9-11 world where the public seems almost instinctively to pin every tragic terrorist attack on some failure of our intelligence agencies, Bergen warns Congress: "What I am saying is that, if we are to improve the performance of our intelligence services, we need to focus first on the people and organizations involved and how they interoperate. When we speak of `connecting the dots,' I believe that we may be paying too much attention to the dots and not enough to the connecting part." Whether from Admiral Philip Bergen, Director of National Intelligence or from the author himself, it's sound advice. It's just one of many sentiments the reader will find himself wishing real spy chiefs might one day stand behind. Through the course of this novel, Harrison demonstrates the significant differences between real people and the images they use to inspire their followers. His story winds its way through a maze of stereotypes and public assumptions, revealing the harsher realities and challenges that lie below. This is no tuxedoed caricature - this is an exciting and forceful glimpse into the interplay of America's first line of defense in the war against terrorism - as well as Her opponents and allies. The relationships between agencies, intelligence providers, consumers, and the public figures that have to take the credit (or the blame) for their outcomes become characters of their very own. The synthesis of real-world experience, a writer's eye, rich characters, and exciting plot bears all the marks of an accomplished veteran writer; a quality more notable because this is Harrison's second novel. When the back cover closed and I'd finished my vacation from non-fiction, I found it difficult to get back to my daily news briefs and current affairs reports. It wasn't just that they lacked t

Excellent!

I never got around to reviewing An Opaque War, a terrorism novel, written by my old pal Fred Harrision. I thought he did a great job with plot, character development and giving an inside look at how things work in intelligence and counter terrorism in Washington. He's just published the sequel, A Course to Stay. The latter is full of Washington politics and personalities and is a serious read. What he puts in fiction could happen. His view of Pakistan is informed, even insightful. The interplay of White House politics with real world issues makes for a dynamic plot. Great characters, good story, believable plot, thought-provoking options, I recommend both.

The Intelligence of Geopolitics

A Course to Stay, the second novel by Frederick Harrison, carries on where An Opaque War ended. Harrison, a retired member of the Senior Intelligence Service at CIA (and the National Security Agency and Office of Naval Intelligence), intertwines what seem to be mutually exclusive plots into a realistic, suspenseful geopolitical story that may become more truth than fiction. The leader of the Islamic fundamentalists, Anwar al-Ghabrizi, remains in US custody (after being captured in the first novel), yet the government is puzzled about what to do with him, why he was betrayed, and who betrayed him. Pakistan, from where he was snatched, is slowly moving toward a fundamentalism characteristic of Afghanistan, which would destroy the US power base in the region. Views of the US President, Vice President, cabinet members, congressional leaders, intelligence and law enforcement chiefs, military leaders, and similar individuals in Russia, France, Pakistan, the UK and Turkey present solutions which serve their best interest (including those of the upcoming presidential election in the US). These options range from supporting this fundamentalism, hoping that it will cause rival Islamic factions to turn on each other, to providing major support to bolster the failing Pakistani government. Unlike most intelligence novels, Harrison focuses on a top-down view, allowing readers a rare glimpse in the complications involved within the geopolitical frames of government, and how the intelligence community is involved, or not involved, in such key decisions. Not only a novel, but also an education in how the reality of such events impacts the government at top levels. It was written six months before the current crisis of the government in Pakistan (mid 2008). While A Course to Stay stands on its own, An Opaque War offers the background that will assist the reader in fully understanding the multiple plots. Emil Levine is a retired Navy Reserve Captain and has served with the Office of Naval Intelligence, the National Security Agency, the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency.