The Devil's Garden [Mass Market Paperback]

Ralph Peters (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1999

The headstrong daughter of a prominent U.S. senator came to a forgotten corner of the earth to make a difference -- and to escape the influence of her powerful father. But Kelly Trost escaped too well -- for now she has vanished into the dark heart of a small, coreless Muslim nation struggling through a violent rebirth in the wake of the Soviet collapse. No one knows if she is a prisoner of fanatics or mountain warlords -- or even if she is alive -- as her fate suddenly becomes the concern of governments and multi-national corporations jockeying for power in the area.

Only one American, Lt. Colonel Evan Burton, has the courage and the local experience to track down Kelly Trost. Disillusioned by the hopelessness and cruelty of other men's wars, and by the cynicism of his own government, Burton is prepared to hang up his uniform -- when the fate of one young woman calls him back to duty.

It will prove to be the most difficult and brutal mission of his career, as he searches for her amid the chaos of a lawless country controlled by gangsters, religious zealots, warlords, oil executives, mutinous generals and foreign spies. For an innocent has become a bargaining chip in a cold and ruthless global game, and she may be more valuable dead than alive. Her only hope lies in her fierce will to survive -- and in a lone soldier who would give his life to save her.

Powerful and provocative, rich in authentic detail and breathtaking in suspense, THE DEVIL'S GARDEN is an extraordinary work of fiction that transcends genre, an unforgettable novel in which the fate of nations tomes down to the fate of two human belongs.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

An American aid worker is kidnapped from a refugee camp in Azerbaijan. Since she is a senator's daughter, many forces with different agendas converge. Lt. Col. Evan Burton, assigned to the embassy in Baku, starts searching for the girl and discovers that there is more at stake than his, or her, life. Among the more enchanting characters are an Azeri general who betrays everyone but his own conscience, a warlord and heroin producer, a beautiful German spy, an honorable American ambassador, and the most revolting collection of Big Oil and diplomatic elite scum ever assembled. In the end, the kidnapping is trivial compared with a billion dollars of oil, but Burton has principles. Peters, a U.S. Army officer and author of seven geopolitical thrillers (e.g., Flames of Heaven, LJ 4/1/93) has an eye for the grubby realities of life in the Third World, and his portraits of desperate men pushed by events beyond their cognizance are more convincing than one finds in most thrillers.
-?Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army Combined Arms Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Peters, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, is the author of Twilight of Heroes (1997), Red Army (1989), and two other political thrillers. In The Devil's Garden, the daughter of a powerful U.S. senator has come to a Third World country to help the Muslim refugees who live in dire poverty--"to save the world on her summer vacation." She is kidnapped and taken to the capital of Azerbaijan. An American, one Lieutenant Colonel Evan Burton, is sent to find her. Peters weaves into the plot global politics such as Islamic fundamentalism, Israeli policies, and the region's attitude toward the U.S. His good guys are so very good, his bad guys rotten to the core, and we know from the start that the brave colonel will save the damsel in distress. But never mind, Peters offers readers the thrill ride of their lives all the way. George Cohen --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Avon Books; Reprint edition (January 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380789000
• ISBN-13: 978-0380789009
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,548,885 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The East will rise again!, August 11, 2000

By 

Rottenberg's rotten book review (nyc) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil's Garden (Mass Market Paperback)

Most authors of this genre of political thriller have trouble reconciling the epic heroism (good or bad) of religious fundamentalists in the former Soviet Central Asia with the image of mobs of AK-47-armed men tossing video tapes and foreign magazines into bonfires. In "The Devil's Garden", set in the region's decaying and polluted oilfields, the tables are turned and the ordered world familiar to us disintegrates under the feet of unlucky Westerners. Though author Peters has dabbled in techno-thriller before ("Red Army" and "War in the Year 2020"), he has also practically created his own subgenre of non-techno centered in and around the fringes of the foremer Soviet empire.

"Devil's Garden" tells the story of a young American kidnapped while working for a relief program in that troubled region. Because Peters' victim is the daughter of a US senator, consequences of the kidnapping go far beyond local problems and feed a growing maelstrom that threatens to destroy order already fragile with the collapse of the USSR. Among the unlucky Yankees caught up in the chaos are the Islamic fundamentalists who carry-out the kidnap, the local chieftains who can't be sure what their own role in the kidanpping is, the American intelligence officer sent to lead the rescue, his lover, her husband, the republic's leaders ready to tear their oil-rich state to shreds and an army willing to battle anybody to the death - if they can just learn how to shoot. As a good indicator of the managed chaos, our hero, the aforementioned intelligence officer, tries to determine who would kidnap the senator's daughter by trying to find who's responsible. Bit with the fate of the tiny asian republic's oil at stake, and the militant forces welling up in the population, it's soon clear that nobody is responsible for anything. Peters manages this chaos well. something I appreciate through all of Peters books is his resolute reluctance to point fingers and lay blame - his charachters do that, but are compensated with well nuanced faults that make their objectivity suspect. The guerrillas are fearsome, but not the murderous, callous warriors of god we've seen in other books (or on CNN for that matter). The region's warlords, despite sparking a war that threatens to explode beyond their own borders, are just greedy and - in a masterful anti-climax occurring when the factions meet - go at each other much as the corporate directors in a hostile buy-out. One wonders how the directors of Time-Warner and Disney would have settled their cable-disputes if they had to fight with guns and soldiers instead of lawyers, bloated stock prices and otherwise empty content. The biggest revelation is the hero himself, who, despite being an expert on the region, is actually more lost than any of his fellow Americans. It's all chaotic, but Peters keeps the novel from falling apart and the chaos only adds scale to a blighted country and those who live there and are set on destroying it.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Paperback Writer, January 8, 2002

By 

Stephen Green "VodkaPundit.com" (Colorado Springs, CO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Devil's Garden (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent, November 27, 1999

By 

Shek Speer (Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil's Garden (Hardcover)

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.