- Thor, Brad.
The Last Patriot.
London: Pocket Books, 2008.
ISBN 978-1-84739-195-7.
-
This is a page-turning thriller which requires somewhat more
suspension of disbelief than the typical book of the genre.
The story involves, inter alia,
radical Islam, the assassination of Mohammed, the Barbary pirates,
Thomas Jefferson, a lost first edition of
Don Quixote, puzzle boxes,
cryptography, car bombs, the French
DST,
the U.S. president, and a plan to undermine the foundations of
one of the world's great religions.
If this seems to cross over into the territory of a
Dan Brown novel or the
National
Treasure movies, it does, and like those
entertainments, you'll enjoy the ride more if you don't
look too closely at the details or ask questions like,
“Why is the President of the United States, with the
resources of the NSA at his disposal, unable to break a
simple cylinder substitution cipher devised more than two
centuries ago?”. Still, if you accept this book for
what it is, it's a fun read; this would make an excellent
“airplane book”, at least as long as you
aren't flying to Saudi Arabia—the book is banned
in that country.
A U.S. edition is available.
March 2010 