72 Virgins by Avi Perry

The suicide-bomber's body was torn, his guts spilled out on the pavement. The dead guard next to him had his right arm ripped out of his body.

~Page 29, 72 Virgins by Avi Perry


Update @ 10:52 PM: Posting my review of 72 Virgins:

Title: 72 Virgins
Author: Avi Perry
ISBN: 9780615280516
Publisher: Gradient Publishing/2009
Pages: 385

From the Publisher
72 Virgins is a novel about Jihad terrorism and the security agencies’ struggle to thwart its stratagem and trounce the perpetrators. Abu Musa is an Islamic Terrorist with an agenda, a ticking bomb inside the US. Arik Golan is an Israeli who tries to bring him down and pull the plug on his terror organization. Stanley Kramer is an FBI agent on a hunting mission, seeking to place both Abu Musa and Arik within his crosshair. The FBI, the Israeli Foreign Intelligence Service—the Mossad, the US-based Iranian clandestine terror network, and the Islamic Jihad fraternity are engaged in a timeless conflict, playing out to a crescendo that comes to a head before the dramatic conclusion.

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72 Virgins is about Global Terrorism, realistic, and hence scary too, in its depiction of Islamic Jihad. It might be fictional but it strikes home. It can anywhere, anyplace, any time by anyone who is like one of us. I am not going to write about the storyline but what is it really about.

The violence that comes in the wake of Jihad is rationalised by die-hard Islamists. Young impressionable minds are somehow influenced for suicide misions. This in the name of 72 virgins waiting in heaven to serve them for the killings and for that self destruction. There is this misplaced notion that God wishes for blood, as much as is possible, be it of innocent people. Only then, they can get to paradise and stay there for eternity. The big question is, the perpetrators are in no hurry to find that paradise for themselves.

In this fictional account, the FBI, Israeli Mossad and terror networks are at loggerheads and there can't be any end to it anytime soon. Each and everyone is trying to outdo the other, without any rationality or reasonings.

Here in India, we have been facing terrorism for the past 30 years or so. It comes across from the Indo-Pak border, training camps found in Pakistan as well as PoK (Pakistan occupied Kashmir). It is not confined there but has spread to all over India. Can anyone forget the Mumbai terror attacks where 10 terrorists held the whole city to ransom? Not anytime soon. How does one justify a religion which preaches violence? I am an apolitical person. But when terrorism affects my life, I can't stay silent and watch from the sidelines. I live in the shadow of it and yet haven't learnt to deal with it. For that reason only, I found this book fascinating where it speaks of the misplaced Jihad culture. This book made me pause, think and again resume it soon.

The book is a must read for everyone. If only to understand what is happening in the name of Global Terrorism. And also that political leaders can do to any length to achieve their own means and ends. There can't be happy endings but with awareness, maybe we can control it. Maybe not.

The quotation on my blog header says:

"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us." Franz Kafka

72 Virgins sure did.

Do look out for a guest post by Avi Perry on my blog on 30th October.

I thank Tracee of Pump Up Your Book Promotion for my review copy of the book for virtual book tours.