Innocent Blood: A Novel [Paperback]

Christopher Dickey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 19, 1998

He is the perfect terrorist. He's an all-American boy. Kurt Kurtovic is someone you might know -- and ought to fear. Kurt was a U.S. Army Ranger. Born and raised in Kansas, he was trained to kill for -- what? Once he might have said "for God and country." Kurt searches in the former Yugoslavia, the land of his parents, for a place, for faith, for a cause. In the midst of the horrors in Bosnia, Kurt is recruited to fight by a holy warrior, a terrorist Iago, who plays on all of Kurt's doubts and fears: America is the evil behind the horror, but Kurt can change it. He can take the war home. He can penetrate to the heart of the U.S. elite. He can teach his country a lesson so horrible it will never forget. In this riveting story of war, love, and deception, Christopher Dickey takes us to the white-hot core of the terrorist mind. "Innocent Blood" is as real as today's headlines -- and tomorrow's.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The years that journalist Christopher Dickey spent covering wars in the Middle East and Central America for Newsweek and the Washington Post give almost every page of his first novel an impressive verisimilitude. But even more impressive is his ability to take that stock figure of fiction on the page and screen--the Muslim terrorist--and turn him into an understandable and sympathetic human being. By making his central character a tall, blond, blue-eyed American boy, Dickey probably leaves himself open to charges of playing it safe, of ignoring ethnic realities. But it's the very fact that Kurt Kurtovic could be the boy next door that carries us along through this powerful, plausible story of Kurtovic's journey from Kansas schoolboy to Army Ranger hero to World Trade Center bomber, and helps to show us how America's actions in Panama and the Persian Gulf did indeed bring terrorism to its own shores. Dickey's nonfiction books in paperback are Expats: Travels in Arabia, from Tripoli to Teheran and With the Contras: A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Kurt Kurtovic is a former U.S. Army demolitions expert who, after seeing action in Panama and the Gulf War, resigns and travels to Europe in search of his family's roots. There he encounters Rashid, a friend from the Gulf, who provides him with the closest thing to a family he has ever known. Kurtovic becomes a Muslim and joins an armed faction in Bosnia, using his expertise to kill and destroy. Tired of the senseless killing, he returns to America. Then Rashid asks him to help spread the smallpox virus all over America, ostensibly to get the attention of a nation that ignores the plight of Muslims. Almost too late, Kurt discovers that Rashid is an agent for Saddam Hussein. Dickey (Expats, LJ 6/15/90) probes the psyche of a modern-day terrorist motivated not by religious belief but by loneliness and rootlessness. Not a fast-paced thriller, this intriguing psychological study is all the more frightening because it takes place here and now. For medium and large public libraries.?Grant A. Fredericksen, Illinois Prairie Dist. P.L., Metamora
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st Scribner Paperback Fiction Ed edition (August 19, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684852616
• ISBN-13: 978-0684852614
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,883,139 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

What ties all of Christopher Dickey's books together?

His most recent is "Securing the City: Inside America's Best Counterterror Force -- The NYPD," chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the notable books of 2009. But before that came "a first-rate thriller," "The Sleeper," which followed his critically acclaimed memoir, "Summer of Deliverance," about his father, the poet and novelist James Dickey. "Innocent Blood," Chris's first novel, predicted in 1997 the waves of terror that would come at the United States, and got inside the heads of those who would bring them. "Expats," is a book of essays about traveling among the people of the Middle East -- particularly the displaced and misplaced Westerners who lived there in times of war. And Chris's first book, "With The Contras," in 1986, was not only an up-close account of combat in Nicaragua but a first-hand history of Central America at a time of ferocious revolutions and repression.

So, you'll say that what's common about Chris's books is combat, terror and emotional trauma. And that's partly true. But there is also another deeply felt theme: that of family as the ultimate source of human drama and also the social force that far too often is misunderstood, or ignored, in our efforts to grasp what's going on in the world around us. For more on this theme see pages 228-229 in the paperback edition of "Summer of Deliverance" or Location 3949 on the Kindle edition.


Chris's career as an editor, reporter and foreign correspondent spans 35 years. He is currently the Paris Bureau Chief and Middle East Regional Editor for Newsweek Magazine and The Daily Beast. Previously he worked for The Washington Post as Cairo Bureau Chief and Central America Bureau Chief. Chris's columns about counter-terrorism, espionage and the Middle East appear regularly now on TheDailyBeast.com. For links to recent columns and articles, visit www.ChristopherDickey.com.

Chris has written for Foreign Affairs, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Wired, Rolling Stone, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, and The New Republic, among other publications. He is a frequent commentator on the BBC World Service, BBC television, CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio and France24 as well as other television and radio networks.

Among his many honors are awards from the Overseas Press Club, the Inter-American Press Association and Georgetown University. Chris is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he was formerly an Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow, and of the Anglo-American Press Association of Paris. In the fall of 2009 he was a visiting professor at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom.

And Chris's next book? He's deep into a true, untold story of espionage and international intrigue -- and, yes, combat, terror, trauma and families -- on the eve of the War Between the States.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Thought Provoking Story, March 15, 2002

By 

Andrew Bain (near Charlottesville, Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Innocent Blood: A Novel (Hardcover)

I read this book this past week, after failing to track it down upon its release. It is a marvelous, gripping story that held me in the character's viewpoint the entire way. But it is not just a thriller; it requires you to think about the actions, and inactions, you make every day as an American. By not voicing your opinion to your government representatives, you allow them to speak for you without their knowledge of your beliefs and desires. Therefore, for instance, the war on terrorism (and personal privacy) currently ongoing is made in your name, whether or not you agree with it. And so this book tells the history of the main character named Kurt; how he views the world as a teenager, all the way up through his Army Ranger years, and how he (representing many frustrated Americans who feel their voice is unheard) becomes disillusioned with the government of his country and its policies. The tale ends in a manner designed to make you want to create positive change in a capitalistic world, where economies have become more important than the people who are supposed to benefit from them. The events of September 11 (and the fact that Kurt was not based on Timothy McVeigh) only serve to make this book more interesting; how can someone (granted, he is a journalist, thus--at least in this instance!--an inquiring mind) imagine these possibilities, and why couldn't our government's agencies recognize them as such. This book will make you think. I really liked it and recommend it highly.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Innocent Blood : A Novel by Christopher Dickey, October 19, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Innocent Blood: A Novel (Paperback)

Here is entry into a world which would have been unbelievable prior to the events of 9/11/01. Whether home-grown or international, the terrorism Christopher Dickey writes about comes first-hand from his experience in the midst of their frightening reality, and it comes through every word.

The style and imagery of Dickey is so compelling, it makes "Innocent Blood" a page-turner I could not put down until I finished it. Which brings me to say that the LAST 3 pages of this thriller could be considered the outline of a bible on the mind of the post-millenium terrorist.

I highly recommend this story which has an immediacy the writer could not have known about when he wrote it!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More People Should Know About This Book, December 6, 2001

By 

C. Archuleta (Burbank, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Innocent Blood: A Novel (Paperback)

I picked up the book recently and didn't realise what it was really about. I couldn't put it down - I've told as many people as I can about the book, but I really think that there should be more done to get the book out with the current state of the world.

It was eerie reading the book in November 2001. How could Dickey have hit such a perfect note a few years ago? I hope he is proud of his work. It would have been a compelling read at any time - but it is certainly a must now.