The Watchmen - Softcover

Altman, John

3.49

167 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0515139319 ISBN 13: 9780515139310

Publisher: Berkley, 2005

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In a remote safehouse three men are facing off: an unusually cooperative Al Qaeda prisoner who's under interrogation; a psychiatrist whose specialty is mind-altering drugs; and a CIA agent dispatched on an assassination mission.

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About the Author:

John Altman comes from an extended family of writers. His previous books are A Gathering of Spies, A Game of Spies, and Deception.

From Publishers Weekly:

When captured al-Qaeda operative Ali Zattout proves less than forthcoming with his CIA interrogators, they subject him to the manipulations of regretful psychiatrist Louis Finney, who tries everything from mellow conversation to electroshock-induced "de-patterning" and "psychic driving." Meanwhile, Zattout is being stalked by a nameless assassin, alumnus of an Asian temple cult of assassins, whose hypno-meditative regimen makes him so stealthily lethal that he is shudderingly referred to as the "ghost wind." Altman (A Gathering of Spies) excels at taut psychological confrontations, engrossing procedural and nerve-wracking action set pieces, replete with the theory and practice of mind control, interrogation techniques, cryptanalysis and murder. But the intrigue and mayhem spring from recognizable human motives. Like the Americans here, Altman's terrorists have affecting backstories and a sense of duty and payback that explains their acts, and they feel misgivings at the brutality they inflict. Orientalist clich�s are off-loaded onto the assassin, a representative of the "True East," whose violence, unlike that of Muslims and Westerners, is not a tragic product of ideology and history but a mystic pathway to enlightenment, though even he is plagued by doubts and depression. Altman's blend of suspense, action, psychological depth and moral murk makes this a wonderful espionage thriller for a Code Orange age.
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