The Devil's Garden

by Ralph Peters

Book Overview

When the headstrong daughter of a U.S. senator disappears in a warravaged country torn between east and west, only a disillusioned American officer possesses the connections and expertise to track her... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380789000
• ISBN13: 9780380789009
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Avon Books
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Paperback Writer

Since when did Ralph Peters become a paerback writer?Don't let the fact that this title was never released in hardcover stop you from reading it. Don't even let it slow you down.Mr. Peters takes us again to the decaying, decrepid, despoiled fringes of the old Soviet empire, this time to the oil-rich and blood-soaked Caucasus. Feudal tribesmen, ex-Soviet nomenklatura, Big Oil, the State Department, and muddle-headed do-gooders (is there a difference between those last two?) are all intertwined over a proposed oil pipeline and a kidnapped political heiress.Standing in, I beleive, for Mr. Peters himself is our lone protagonist -- a perfect anti-hero who can see the truth like Cassandra, but can't always manage to do the right thing. But at least he's trying.If you're looking for a fun way to learn about what might be our next battle zone in the War on Terror, pick up a copy.

Reality Hurts--Joint Chiefs Don't Want to Face It

Ralph Peters, whom I know professionally, is a modern-day Lawrence of Arabia who has actually walked hundreds of miles through the worst of terrains, and deeply understands--at both a Ph.D. and gutter level, the reality of real war. The Joint Chiefs don't want to face this reality because it bears no resemblance to their nice clean air-conditioned CNN version of war. Devil's Garden is the real thing, and it is also a great novel.

excellent

This hasn't generated as much excitement as it deserves, but it's really great. Although towards the beginning some of the prose is a little too purple, once it takes off, I couldn't put it down. In addition to the action scenes, I particularly enjoyed many of his characters and the irony of their confrontations.

On a par with Dickens' 'Tale of Two Cities'

Ralph Peters has done it again! He has woven a seductive, intensely captivating plot into an eminently credible narrative, one as enthralling as those of his earlier 'Twilight of Heroes' and 'The War in 2020'. Unlike the plastic incarnations who stumble incredulously across the pages of Tom Clancy, Dale Brown, and Larry Bond, Peters gives us real-life heroes akin to those of Frederick Forsyth -- those ultimately believable, poignantly human men and women who emerge from a crucible of tragedy and pain to make a veridical impact upon the world. As such, many contemporary authors of America's all-too pandemic and facile techno-thrillers could learn something from Peters, an author who underscores the reality that life is a little more prosaic than the inevitable triumph of democracy as secured by some smarmy fighter pilot-fornicator. Overall, Peters' haunting imagery recalls Edmund Burke's warnings about the metaphysical pretensions of the French Revolutionaries, while his human landscapes are as stark and as those of Cormac McCarthy's 'Blood Meridian'. In the end, Peters' works may very well be to our century what Dickens' 'Tale of Two Cities' was to the nineteenth...Herein lies an absolutely ineluctable read which will not disappoint!

Absolutely spellbinding

An idealist, Kelly Trost, daughter of an influential U.S senator, wants to do good with her life. She is working on an aid mission in rural Azerbaijan when she suddenly disappears. Her frantic father will push every button for her return, but the American presence is very limited even in the capital of the former Soviet Union state. To find an abducted American in the middle of nowhere seems nearly impossible unless the kidnappers want to be found. During the nineties, the American military has been involved in many different global scenarios, including humanitarian and peacekeeping missions. The military is assigned the job of finding the missing senator's daughter. The expert in rural Azerbaijan is the frustrated Lieutenant Colonel Evan Burton, who plans to leave the army very soon. He begins a search that gets him in touch with many different people, all with a motive for kidnapping the daughter of an influential and wealthy American. As he places his own life on the line, Evan knows that if he fails on his quest, Kelly will probably be killed. Ralph Peters is renowned for his political thrillers (RED ARMY) that leave readers ssatisfied yet clamoring for more from this talented writer. His latest offering, THE DEVIL'S GARDEN, is a very interesting geopolitical thriller that will please his myriad of fans. The action is non-stop and ever shifting, and the location is as dangerous and exotic of a region as one can find in the world. Though the characters are not fully developed, fans of political thrillers will want to visit THE DEVIL'S GARDEN because the intrigue alone is worth the trip. Harriet Klausner