Customer Reviews

The Devil's Garden

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Ralph Peters has done it again! He has woven a seductive, intensely captivating plot into an eminently credible narrative, one as enthralling as those of his earlier 'Twilight of Heroes' and 'The War in 2020'. Unlike the plastic incarnations who stumble incredulously across the pages of Tom Clancy, Dale Brown, and Larry Bond, Peters gives us real-life heroes akin to those of Frederick Forsyth -- those ultimately believable, poignantly human men and women who emerge from a crucible of tragedy and pain to make a veridical impact upon the world. As such, many contemporary authors of America's all-too pandemic and facile techno-thrillers could learn something from Peters, an author who underscores the reality that life is a little more prosaic than the inevitable triumph of democracy as secured by some smarmy fighter pilot-fornicator. Overall, Peters' haunting imagery recalls Edmund Burke's warnings about the metaphysical pretensions of the French Revolutionaries, while his human landscapes are as stark and as those of Cormac McCarthy's 'Blood Meridian'. In the end, Peters' works may very well be to our century what Dickens' 'Tale of Two Cities' was to the nineteenth...Herein lies an absolutely ineluctable read which will not disappoint!

Ralph Peters, whom I know professionally, is a modern-day Lawrence of Arabia who has actually walked hundreds of miles through the worst of terrains, and deeply understands--at both a Ph.D. and gutter level, the reality of real war. The Joint Chiefs don't want to face this reality because it bears no resemblance to their nice clean air-conditioned CNN version of war. Devil's Garden is the real thing, and it is also a great novel.

An idealist, Kelly Trost, daughter of an influential U.S senator, wants to do good with her life. She is working on an aid mission in rural Azerbaijan when she suddenly disappears. Her frantic father will push every button for her return, but the American presence is very limited even in the capital of the former Soviet Union state. To find an abducted American in the middle of nowhere seems nearly impossible unless the kidnappers want to be found.

During the nineties, the American military has been involved in many different global scenarios, including humanitarian and peacekeeping missions. The military is assigned the job of finding the missing senator's daughter. The expert in rural Azerbaijan is the frustrated Lieutenant Colonel Evan Burton, who plans to leave the army very soon. He begins a search that gets him in touch with many different people, all with a motive for kidnapping the daughter of an influential and wealthy American. As he places his own life on the line, Evan knows that if he fails on his quest, Kelly will probably be killed.

Ralph Peters is renowned for his political thrillers (RED ARMY) that leave readers ssatisfied yet clamoring for more from this talented writer. His latest offering, THE DEVIL'S GARDEN, is a very interesting geopolitical thriller that will please his myriad of fans. The action is non-stop and ever shifting, and the location is as dangerous and exotic of a region as one can find in the world. Though the characters are not fully developed, fans of political thrillers will want to visit THE DEVIL'S GARDEN because the intrigue alone is worth the trip.

Harriet Klausner

You can almost taste the dust in the streets as one of the most refined writers of the genre takes us around the world in 50's sleuth-like style. The novel is set in the late 90's though and follows an American government agent sent to find a senator's daughter who was kidnapped by Muslims in Iran after out performing relief work.
She becomes just a pawn as greedy entrepreneurs from all sides, including Russia, play in the devils garden for a stake in oil. Starts slow and builds to a crescendo.

I can't help but think we are reading the life of Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters.

God bless
Scott

An outstanding work, gives you a real 3-D feel for Azerbaijan and the complex politics of the region and has a scathing portrait of the Russia-first policies of some brain-dead Washington policy-makers. Would make a great movie! It's also a good guidebook for anybody planning a trip to the region.

The main character, Lt. Col. Evan Burton, is an engaging military man close to retirement with some moral issues but truly out to do good. As a bit of a fixer of difficult problems he finds himself on the hunt for a kidnapped daughter of an American Senator. The action takes places in a former Soviet republic which provides a rich environment for the range of factions and interests that Peters includes in his plot. What holds the reader's interest is the potentially plausible kidnapping at the core of the story. A good travel or beach read that begins very well but soon becomes your standard thriller.

This is a great Ralph Peters story that doesn't cease to evolve - even to the last page. Peters is a brillant story teller that mixes rich adjectives with imaginative plots and subplots, all rooted in a reality that only someone who has acutally lived these events could create.