Crescent Dawn - Book Review

Crescent Dawn - A Dirk Pitt Novel

by Clive Cussler & Dirk Cussler

Putnam & Sons November 2010

In previous reviews of Dirk Pitt novels, I have not been terribly impressed with Dirk Pitt's son and daughter, Dirk Junior and Summer. But in this novel they come into their own and as a team they are very impressive. But the novel itself could have done with a lot better editing. In fact there are 2 seperate stories in this novel and each story could have had its OWN novel rather than be squashed together as an afterthought to create a 500 plus page monster.

Three events, distant in time and space. A treasure-laden fourth century Roman galley narrowly escapes a ferocious pirate attack; a World War I British warship explodes mysteriously in the North Sea; and in the all-too-real present-day, a string of coordinated bomb attacks destroys historic mosques in Egypt and Turkey. Something (supposedly) links these violent events and it's up to NUMA director Dirk Pitt to find and tie the deadly threads.

While the novel does get off to a slow start, and with different chapters describing each member of the Pitt family becoming involved in their search, the real action doesn't start happening until chapter 20 and when the team members finally get together in chapter 56, they each contribute their strands of the mystery to get the possible entire story.

BUT it turns out there are 2 different stories here, neither of which are directly connected to each other.

At the beginning of Cusslers novels the author always has a brief prologue about one or two historical ships in action - usually by being sunk. These ships always have something major to do with the main story.

So for this novel (Crescent Dawn) there are 2 boats being sunk in the prologue - and both end up having nothing whatsoever to do with the main story and everything to do with the secondary story.

The main story is about the Celik siblings who turn out to be descendents of Mehmet VI - the last Ottoman sultan of Turkey before Mustapha Ataturk deposed the sultans and took control of Turkey in 1923. The Celik siblings have grand visions of making Islam the major religion of the Middle East and the Mediterranean as it once was, over 1000 years previously. They will kill anyone who stands in their way.

First they blow up a historical mosque in Egypt and then they try to blow up the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Fortunately that attempt was partially thwarted because Dirk Pitt junior was in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately his new girlfriend Sophie, died as a result of this botched explosion.

Lastly an Israeli water tanker is hijacked on the high seas of the Mediterranean and the crew is forced to fill it with ANFO and HMX explosives. The crew is then locked in the ship and the ship sets sail for Istanbul - where it is obviously intended to be a huge bomb that could destroy the city of Istanbul and a good portion of its 12 million residents.

Pitt and Giordino and their trusty new high speed submersible and speeder called the Bullet (top speed - 47 knots) race to Istanbul to find and prevent this floating bomb from exploding. They are unable to prevent the bomb from exploding, but they do rescue the crew and prevent the explosion from doing a huge amount of damage. In the last few minutes Pitt and Giordino are able to use a dredge to knock a hole in the ship which sinks it.

The Manifest of Jesus is a papyrus list of items that was discovered in Palestine in the late 1700s and reputed to have referred to a cache of items that belonged to Jesus Christ. On the list is an item called the Ossuary of J. The Church of England (Anglican Church) is terrified that it contains the bones of Jesus which will prove that the resurrection never happened. So the church is determined that this list never see the light of day. The Church sends letter after letter to Earl Horatio Herbert Kitchener (the person who is last known to have held the manifest list) demanding that he give the manifest to the church for "safekeeping".

In the early chapters of this novel. Summer Pitt is in England helping a girlfriend (Julie) to research Kitcheners personal papers. Summer uses NUMA technology to do a search around the wreck of the HMS Hampshire where they discover that the explosion that sank the ship, occurred from inside the ship. The hull plates are bent outwards, not inwards. Kitchener drowned aboard the Hampshire when it sunk in 1916.

Unknown to the girls, a jewish antiquities dealer has hired a shady archaeologist named Ridley Bannister to track down the items from the manifest of Jesus. He ends up shadowing the trail of Summer and her friend as they do all the work. Amongst Kitcheners papers and personal belongings, they eventually find the original papyrus manifest and a translation. Ridley promptly takes the papyrus from them at gun point.

After the fallout from the Istanbul ship bomb dies down, Pitt and his team return to the Mediterranean to complete the search for the items of the Manifest. The trail leds them to Cyprus where they eventually find a Roman galley safely hidden in an old cave. Within the ship are boxes containing the items on the manifest. These items eventually go on display in the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

To be honest the religious mystery is NOT related to the quest for muslim domination at all. The two historical ships that were sunk at the beginning of this novel were both directly related to the religious mystery. I think this secondary story is just the authors trying to cash in on the latest trend for novels - religious mysteries ala The Da Vinci Code.

This entire novel is all about religion and terrorism and the middle east - the main story lines still happening in the world today.

Lori's Song

Lori's Song
by Lori Foroozandeh
Outskirts Press,
Denver, Colorado, 2009
(self-publisher)
Lori's website



This books tells a horrendous story of an American woman in a prison camp somewhere in Iran, who was tortured purely because she was an American.

Lori was abused as a child and married at age 15 to get away from her adoptiive family. She had a son, Douglas. The marriage broke up and Lori went back to school to become a nurse. She graduated in 1985.

Sometime in the mid 1990s Lori married Mohammed Foroozandeh, an Iranian. Upon marrying him, she automatically became an Iranian citizen under Iranian law. In the late 1990s Lori and her husband went to Iran to live. They lived in the southern city of Shiraz.

For 2 years Lori worked as an english teacher, forced to be submissive and to wear the all covering chador (aka burkha). Mohammed also abused her as well. He slapped her regularly whenever she was not submissive enough or fast enough.

Lori taught teenage girls and young women at a private college. This is a photo of Lori's students at the college. Leila, on the far right, was drowned in the backyard pool by her father because she was caught with a man she was not married to. Lori (in the middle with the blond hair and white shirt) was stunned by this punishment.

Lori's husband, Mohammed Foroozandeh was a drug addict and a drug dealer. He was always making business trips and then he began a new business as an "immigration consultant". This became Lori's job after she was forced to leave the private college. The Iranian government was putting pressure on the college to not hire the infidel American.

Lori was the front person for the immigration consutant business. She had all the knowledge of immigration to USA and what was required. Mohammed found the Iranian clients who were willing to pay big money to get to the USA. He charged very high prices. Then the money would disappear. Lori eventually discovered that Mohammed was using the money to buy drugs.

When Lori entered Iran, she was forced to give up her passport to the Iranian immigration department. In the year 2001, Mohammed decided that he needed to leave Iran. He arranged for them to leave by bus. At the bus station the day after 9-11, the police arrived and Lori was captured. Mohammed got away.

Lori spent the next several months in a prison camp where she was tortured. Other prisoners in the camp either had American sympathies, had relatives in USA or had busines contacts in USA. Lori was handcuffed to another girl who was supposedly part Iranian and part American. Her family were also in the same camp. The family eventually escaped, but not before the girl died. They took Lori with them.

Lori eventually made her way to Teheran but when she went to the Swiss embassy (who also handle US interests in Iran) she was turned away and they refused to help her because they considerd her to be a liar. They claimed her story was impossible The Iranians did not torture, they said. Lori had no passport and could not leave Iran legally. She found some friends and supporters in Iran and one of them eventually got her passport back.

When Lori arrived back in USA she wanted to tell her story to the public.But every where she turned, the media and the government refused to listen to her, refused to beleive her and refused to allow her to go public.

Lori has been back in USA now for several years. She has spent msny years dealing with her PTSS - post traumatic stress syndrome - and has found another wonderful man to whom she is engaged.

She also decided that she must let the world know the truth about Iran. No mainstream publisher or newspaper will touch her story, so Lori has had to publish it herself.

In the Land of Invisible Women - Book Review

In the Land of Invisible Women
Qanta Ahmed
Source Books
2008







Qanta Ahmed is a British-Born Doctor of Pakistani ancestry. She is also a Muslim. Her parents left Pakistan during the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947.

Qanta grew up speaking English and Urdu, and knew just enough Arabic to read the Koran. She attended the University of Nottingham Medical School in England where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in medical sciences and a medical degree. After an internship year in England, Qanta completed her residency in New York City at the Staten Island University Hospital. This was followed by fellowships in pulmonary, critical care and sleep disorders medicine.

In early 2000 Qanta's application to work in USA was denied by the US government, so she had to scramble to find a job. She eventually chose the King Fahad National Guard Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia where she worked as an attending Intensivist for 2 years. It must also be stated that Dr Ahmed returned to Riyadh to visit friends a number of times after her initial 2 year contract ended.

This book is about the 2 years she spent in Saudi Arabia as a woman and how she was forced to become invisible. In Saudi Arabia Women are treated as second class citizens - from the western point of view.

Dr Ahmed tells the story of her Hajj - the pilgrimage every Muslim is expected to make to Mecca as often as possible and at least once in their life times. I love the details and stories and history she tells about her pilgrimage. Details that are not normally given out to non-muslims. This is probably the first time I have been able to read and know the details of how to make a Hajj.

Dr Ahmed describes being attacked by the Clothes Police - the Muttaween (or Muttawa - singular) whren she was out with someone who allowed a veil or hijab to slip from her face and hair in public. Below is an example of what the Mutaween mean but it is not how they say it.

You have a beautiful face, and you are certainly very attractive. But your face is uncovered, and that is not the right thing to do. It is not religious and attracts needless attention from strangers, and that is very inappropriate, especially with so many males around. You must veil your face completely when you are out in public. Your beauty is your property, and not for others to see. Even your hands must be gloved to minimize any unwarranted attention. That is the right thing to do.

It may be an old tradition but it is NOT following Islam because it is NOT in the Qu'ran.

Qanta discovered that there is NOTHING in the Quran that says that women should cover their faces. Prophet Muhammad said: If the woman reaches the age of puberty, no part of her body should be seen but this (and he pointed to his face and hands). Covering their face is something imposed by the Religious Police, there is no basis at all for it in the Quran or the other sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.

From the Saudi point of view, women are treated like possessions and seriously over-protected. Basically women are usually treated by Saudi men as if they have no brain and no intelligence and that they are good only for bearing children. Saudi women were not allowed to drive or to buy music or to run a business. The women must always be driven or accompanied by a male relative when they are outside the house. Saudis were not permitted to work as nurses or nannies, as janitors and cleaners, housekeepers, or drivers. Hundreds of people come from Asia every year to work in Saudi Arabia and do those jobs.

Below is a Saudi view of how women are treated in Saudi Arabia. This comes from The Religious Police blog written by a Saudi resident in 2004.

Violence apart, consider the lot of the average Saudi woman.

As a young girl, she can play out in the street with the young boys.
When puberty comes, she must retire inside, only appearing in public in abaya and veil.
She has no opportunity to seek her own marriage partner. She is dependent upon her family to find one, and one who can afford the dowry. She can say "no", but not too often, otherwise the introductions will stop.
Her husband can divorce her with relative ease.
Her husband can marry up to 3 other wives. Yes, in material terms, he must treat them equally. But his affection will obviously not be split 4 ways.
If she is caught herself in adultery, she will be stoned to death. Yes, it happens, it's just not reported these days.
She has equality of education. Like men, she can go to university. However her career choice is limited.
She can work in the Ladies' branch of a bank. She can teach female pupils. That's about it. She can't even, at the moment, be a flight attendant on Saudi Aiirlines. If she's very lucky, she can work in the "ladies only" floor of the Kingdom Shopping Center in Riyadh. But she can't work on the perfume counter of a regular shop, or in a lingerie shop; you'll find Lebanese men doing that.
She may well be wealthy in her own right, and own a business. However she can't manage it, if that would bring her into contact with men.
She can't drive. She can of course walk to the shops. Try that wearing black artificial fiber head-to-toe, in temperatures up to 50 celsius. (We men, of course, wear cool white cotton). Drivers are within the reach of many family incomes; but leave them at the door of the shopping center, otherwise you'll both be arrested.
She'll find it difficult to go out "with the girls". Many restaurants will not allow a group of unaccompanied women in. Same problem by herself. The safest way to get into the "Family" section of a restaurant, is with husband and / or children.
She can of course entertain her lady friends at home. That assumes her husband allows it. Many Saudi homes have bars on the windows, and the women are locked in during the day.
At home, she can do whatever she wants to amuse herself. However, there are clearly few opportunities to fulfil herself. Typically, therefore, she will start a family early. We have one of the highest birth-rates in the world.
If she has domestic problems, there is no network of support groups. Her family may help, it depends. Having got her married with some difficulty, they may be unwilling to take her back again.
The story of women in Saudi Arabia is one of unending tragedy. They are our mothers, our wives, our daughters, yet on the whole we treat them like our cattle. It's a story that needs to change.


In 2004 Rania Al-Baz, a news anchor on Saudi TV. was beated and almost killed by her Saudi husband because she was showing her face in public (on TV). She allowed her father to take pictures or her body, her bruises and her broken bones (she had 13 fractures) and sent the pictures to the BBC news so that the world could see how women in Saudi Arabia were treated if they did not stay invisible. Rania later fled from Saudi Arabia with her children and is now living in Western Europe.

There are two stories, that Qanta tells, that impressed on me what life is like in Saudi Arabia.

One is the story of Reem, a woman doctor who was accepted at the University of Toronto (Canada) to do a Fellowship in Vascular medicine. While her father was proud of all that she had accomplished, he declined to give her permission to leave the country UNLESS she was engaged or married. She was a 30 year old woman who had no interest in getting married - BUT she had a dream. To be a vascular surgeon.

So Reem got engaged to a nice man that her parents chose for her. The book does not say if Reem went to Toronto. She did have a farewell party. But then Qanta moves into a new topic. The only thing that Qanta says at the end of the book is that Reem never operated again and had 3 daughters. Presumably her husband did not allow her to work upon her return from Canada.

The other story is that of a young boy who was stabbed by a fellow school mate. The boy was rushed to the National Guard hospital where Qanta was working and was pronounced DOA. BUT his body was put onto life support. When Qanta asked why, she was told that the family of the boy who was on life support, had the right to demand retribution from the family of the boy who did the stabbing.

In Saudi Arabia, a boy is considered an adult as soon as they get ONE hair growing in their private parts. And this boy (who was stabbed) had ONE hair. (probably aged around 12 or 13). This retribution was permitted in one of two forms. Revenge or blood money. All perfectly legal under Islam.

The family whose boy was on the life support machines had asked for a large sum of money to be paid for the boys life, OR the boy who did the stabbing was to be executed - excution being the standard adult sentence for murder.

The boy on the life machine stayed there for several weeks while the other boys family desperately tried to raise the money required to pay the dead boys family. Eventually they did, so the boy who did the stabbing literally got away with murder. The dead boy was finally taken off life support and buried.

Qanta was still in Saudi Arabia, nearing the end of her 2 year contract when the attacks of 9-11 happened. She quickly discovered that the Saudis were happy that the USA had been attacked and that the USA was hated because of their close relationship with Israel. The Israelis are killing the (Palestinian) Arabs in Gaza and in the West Bank. But the Saudi Arabian government refuses to do anything to help the Palestinians. As does the rest of the world.

Qanta also mentioned that it has been suggested that the Palestinians be allowed to live in Saudi Arabia. There is PLENTY of room in that country. But it turns out that the Saudis are also racist. Anyone who is not a pure Saudi Arab is looked down and made to do the dirty jobs. The nurses, the drivers, the nannies, the janitors and cleaners - they are all non-saudis (Pakistanis, Palestinians and Syrians) as well as Asians. This why there are so many foreigners in the country.

There apparently is a new law that says that women are now allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. BUT according to the RELIGIOUS POLICE blog, the women are only allowed to drive in the rural desert areas. They must still stay off the main highways and out of the cities in their cars. The reason women can drive in the desert is because there is very little enforcement. Women in the cities MUST STILL have a male chauffeur/driver.

When Qanta left Saudi Arabia, she went back to England and worked there for a short time. She is now working as a Pulmonary and Sleep disorders Specialist in North Carolina, USA.

This is an excellent book to read, if you really want to know what it is like to be a woman in Saudi Arabia today.

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DISCLAIMER
DO NOT read further if you do not wish to read my opinions about the world today. These are MY OPINIONS, based on my reading and observing of events ocurring over the last 8 years.

The following paragraphs are some observations by myself having gleaned a few clues while readng this book. These comments are NOT aimed at any specific readers of this blog. The names of any countries used, refer to the governments of those countries only.

The religion of Islam is based on justice and revenge. An eye for an eye. This is the number one misunderstanding of the Western world towards the Middle East. This is why the Middle East will ALWAYS be a volcano waiting to explode as long as outside countries (USA, Israel and UK particularly) continue to tell the Arabs (and Persians) what do to and how to live.

The USA HAS ALREADY LOST the war in Iraq. The sooner the Americans accept this and leave the better the faster the situation will calm down. Who cares if it shows the Americans as weak - they were weak and stupid to even go into Iraq in the first place. Because as long as the Americans stay in Iraq and keep telling the Iraqis what to do and as long as the Americans continue killing Iraqi families, the Iraqi people will NEVER stop fighting back. Why should they? Their Qu'ran says that the justice is theirs and they can take an eye for an eye and Allah will reward them.

In Islam the Quran permits exact and equivalent retribution. The Quran, however, softens the law of an eye for an eye by urging mankind to accept less compensation than that inflicted upon him or her by a Muslim, or to forgive altogether. In other words, Islam does not deny Muslims the ability to seek retaliation in the equal measure. But it does, however promote forgiveness and the acceptance of blood money not as a mandatory requisite, but rather as a good deed that will be eventually rewarded. [wikipedia]

Iraq did not break any rules. They did NOT have any WMD. The major reasons for Bush to INVADE Iraq were - 1 to remove Saddam Huseein who was no longer under the control of the US government. He had invaded Kuwait in 1990 and wanted to sell his oil using another currency other than the dollar. He was now following his own agenda to help the Iraqi people. Number 2 was for the oil. Bush promised that the oil of Iraq would PAY for the war. That has never happened.

The same thing applies to Afghanistan as well. Again there will be no peace as long as the USA keeps telling the Afghans what to do and how to live their lives, and as long as the US keeps telling the Afghan people to STOP growing poppies (used in the production of drugs).

There is NO need for the USA to spread democracy around the world. Most other countries do NOT WANT Democracy. They see the hypocrisy where one country claims they are a democratic nation, and yet they torture people. Another country is committing genocide against the native population and the world sits by and does nothing. That country is not a democracy - although that country does claim to the "only democracy" in the middle East. That is a load of BULL, and the world knows it - or they SHOULD know it. Israel is a THEOCRACY. Everything is controlled by the Talmud. And the Talmud says that Arabs are like dogs - good only for killing.

For more details please see WHAT REALLY HAPPENED and the RELIGIOUS POLICE.
Thank you.