Prayers for the Assassin: A Novel [Hardcover]

Robert Ferrigno (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 7, 2006

SEATTLE, 2040. The Space Needle lies crumpled. Veiled women hurry through the busy streets. Alcohol is outlawed, replaced by Jihad Cola, and mosques dot the skyline. New York and Washington, D.C., are nuclear wastelands. Phoenix is abandoned, Chicago the site of a civil war battle. At the edges of the empire, Islamic and Christian forces fight for control of a very different United States.

Enormous in scope and brilliantly imagined, Prayers for the Assassin promises to be the powerhouse read of the year. Burning with cinematic violence, fiendish betrayal, and global intrigue, Robert Ferrigno's sensational thriller asks: What would happen to America if the terrorists won?

After simultaneous suitcase-nuke attacks destroy New York, Washington, D.C., and Mecca -- attacks blamed on Israel -- a civil war breaks out. An uneasy truce leaves the nation divided between an Islamic republic with its capital in Seattle, and the Christian Bible Belt in the old South. In this frightening future there are still Super Bowls and Academy Awards, but calls to Muslim prayer echo in the streets and terror is everywhere. Freedom is controlled by the state, paranoia rules, and rebels plot to regain free will...

One of the most courageous is the beautiful young historian Sarah Dougan, who uncovers shocking evidence that the nuclear attacks might not have been planned by Israel, evidence that, if true, will destabilize the nation. When Sarah suddenly goes missing, the security chief of the Islamic republic calls upon Rakkim Epps, her secret lover and a former elite warrior, to find her -- no matter what the risk.

But as Rakkim searches for Sarah, he is tracked by Darwin, a brilliant psychopathic killer trained in the same secretive unit as Rakkim. To survive, Rakkim must become Darwin's assassin -- a most forbidding challenge. A bloody, nerve-racking chase takes them through the looking-glass world of the Islamic States of America, and culminates dramatically as Rakkim and Sarah battle to expose the truth to the entire world.

Can the couple outrun Darwin? Who is really behind the nuke attacks? Will Sarah and Rakkim stay alive long enough to deliver the truth? Does a nation divided have a prayer?

Robert Ferrigno's Prayers for the Assassin shows the novelist at the height of his powers, and delivers a masterful, unforgettable read.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Taking post-9/11 conspiracy theories that blamed the attacks on Zionist agents as the seed for this unusual thriller, Ferrigno (The Wake-Up) posits a nuclear terrorist onslaught in 2015 on New York City, Washington, D.C., and Mecca that has all the earmarks of a Mossad operation. The blue states are moved by these horrors to convert to Islam, while the red states break away from the Islamic Republic, forming a Christian republic in the South. By 2040, three major parties struggle for control in the Islamic Republic: the moderate State Security forces, under Redbeard; the Black Robes, a fundamentalist religious police force; and the top-secret Assassins, under the Old One. When Sarah Dougan, Redbeard's niece and a respected historian, reinvestigates the 2015 attack for a new book, The Zionist Betrayal?, the Old One sics his deadliest assassin on her. Running from Seattle to Vegas, Sarah has a protector in her lover, an ex-fedayeen soldier named Rakkim Epps, whose agnostic POV anchors the novel. Fans of instapundit politics will love this thriller, which has the cinematic motion and atrocity F/X of a good airport read. However, Ferrigno's gimmick—the transformation of America into a cartoon version of Islam—lends the proceedings a damaging air of implausibility. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Prayers marks a departure for Ferrigno, whose previous books focused on life in contemporary Southern California. In Ferrigno's neo-Orwellian world, Mount Rushmore has disappeared, LAX has become Bin Laden International, and midday prayers interrupt the Super Bowl. Critics expressed different ideas about the plot, using words such as "preposterous," "credible," and even "ordinary" to describe it. There's no doubt, however, that Ferrigno raises important questions about religious freedom while handling the subject of Islamic faith with great insight and evenhandedness. If the plot sometimes overwhelms character development, he still allows his creations to air their own opinions without moralizing. In sum: a fast-paced thriller with timely appeal.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; First edition. edition (February 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743272897
• ISBN-13: 978-0743272896
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (101 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #391,712 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in South Florida, a tropical backwater rife with mosquitoes, flying cockroaches and the sweet stink of life. My youth was spent stealing science-fiction paperbacks from the local mini-mart and cutting tunnels through the palmetto thickets behind my house with a machete. Later, I regularly burned down those palmettos for the pleasure of seeing the fire trucks arrive, sirens blaring.

After earning degrees in Philosophy, Film-Making and Creative Writing, I thought that I would be happy as a college professor, writing dense, literary novels which I would assign to my students. I found, however, that being a professor was mostly a matter of going to meetings, and that I hated reading, let alone writing dense, literary novels. Instead, I went back to my first love, poker.

The next five years I gambled full-time, living in a high-crime area populated by starving artists, alcoholics, and drug dealers. I was comfortable there, and became friends with many people who would later populate my novels, the loveable, but dangerous sleazeballs as they have often been described. After a time, I got restless and used some of my winnings to start a punk rock magazine called The Rocket, where I interviewed the Clash, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, etc. The success of The Rocket got me a job as a feature writer for a daily newspaper in Southern California, where I took the adventure-and-new-money beat.

Over the next seven years I flew jets with the Blue Angels, drove Ferraris and went for desert survival training with gun nuts. More importantly, the newspaper taught me to train my eye and ear, to observe, to research, and how to use direct, concise language to create a character, and set a scene. The newspaper was a great gig but I wanted to write novels. I quit my day job.

My first novel, THE HORSE LATITUDES, (1991) was called the fiction debut of the season by Time magazine. It was, however, only May. I have since written seven more novels. My work has been described by the Washington Post as "Quentin Tarantino territory, with drugged-out and sometimes violent people in search of sensory overload, but what makes it all not just bearable, but often compelling, is Ferrigno's scorching wit and his relentless moral sense."

I love writing crime thrillers. At their best they are an honest portrayal of the human heart, within the context of love, humor, ambition, greed and betrayal. Just like life, the good guys are usually tainted, and the bad girls are smarter than anyone. While I can no longer understand a word of my undergraduate thesis on the philosophy of British logical positivist Ludwig Wittgenstein, thanks to researching my novels, I can steal a locked car within thirty seconds, effectively clear a jammed Mac-10 machine gun, and make crystal methadrine from ingredients found in any supermarket. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

87 of 94 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A future I hope we never see, February 10, 2006

By 

Brian Baker (Santa Clarita, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Prayers for the Assassin: A Novel (Hardcover)

I won't rehash the storyline here; you can read that in the publishing reviews.

I will preface by saying that I spent five years living in the Middle East, and I have to say that based on my experience Ferrigno accurately captures the mind-set and atmosphere that pervades societies run by Muslim theocrats.

This book should serve as a wake-up call for those who value traditional Western values in today's atmosphere of radical Islamo-fascism. In that respect it's very Orwellian.

But better still, there's a really good story wrapped into this package, and I jammed through this book very quickly. The characters are fully fleshed out, engaging, and believable. You really like the good guys, and hate the bad guys. Darwin, the "Assasin", is a terrific villain; complex, many-faceted, extremely dangerous; kind of an athletic Hannibal Lechter without the medical degree. The plot is tight, complex and believable; the climax is satisfying.

I really recommend this book. Ferrigno's done a great job, and this has prompted me to see if he's written other books which I haven't yet read so I can get hold of them.

57 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars art becoming life, February 8, 2006

By 

Maureen Zimmerman "wild irish rose" (River Forest, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Prayers for the Assassin: A Novel (Hardcover)

I read this book in 2 days, couldn't put it down, or shut up about it!If you enjoyed "The Handmaid's Tale" by Attwood, you'll recognize the world tipped on it's head, though with even greater horror and worse, the very real plausibity of it! Just look around and watch the Islamic world riot and terrorize and threaten beheadings for caricatures/cartoons published in Denmark, and listen for the moderate islamic voices--they're no where to be found. You'll love the strong characters who stay with you long after you've finished reading. You will also no longer view current world events in the same way. You will shudder at the looming possibity. Another fun task I had was looking for areas that seem like "clues" for a message hidden in the "mistakes" in the text. I'm reading the book again with a closer eye toward this. Such as the character Marian on one page being referred to as Miriam on the page opposite; and the scene in the roller rink described on the left hand page and the character sliding on the ice on the opposite page; then further down the page going back and referring to the singing wheels on the skates! No way is this a sloppy book. I'm having great fun with it. Haven't enjoyed a book like this in quite awhile. So I'm off to buy 4 more books to give to friends.

26 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ferrigno: I Can't Wait For The Sequel! (Just Brush Up On The Islam A Bit), April 13, 2006

By 

Caesar M. Warrington (Lansdowne, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Prayers for the Assassin: A Novel (Hardcover)

Robert Ferrigno does make some glaring mistakes in his presentation of Islam. In the new society it seems as if he freely mixes Sunni and Shi'ite together, naming an airport after Khomeini (a Shi'ite), yet using the term, "imam" in the Sunni sense of the word. And Ferringno clearly has little understanding of the exclusively Shi'ite practice of "muta'a" ("pleasure marriage" or temporary marriage). There is more to Shi'ite temporary marriage than Ferrigno has it with johns driving into the ruins of Disneyland, banging hookers and when finished merely pronouncing three times: "I divorce thee." Muta'a is not condoned or practiced by the world's majority Sunni Muslim community. Even most Shi'ites today are embarrassed of it. As for calling the headscarf "habib," Ferrigno never called it any such thing! The term he uses is "hajib" which is probably an honest to goodness typo for "hijab" (by the way, "hajib" was the term used for a court official in Muslim Spain and North Africa).

I believe the previous reviewer is trying to make Ferrigno out as some sort of bigot or islamophobe. I don't see it. Rather, although there is harsh prejudice against the remaining Catholic minority, he shows that the majority of Americans in the world of PRAYERS FOR THE ASSASSIN are now Muslims and they just want to live their lives in peace and happiness. That is why there is a small faction of hardliners (the Dark Robes) trying to impose a Talibani style of society and also why you have the Hasan-i-Sabah wannabe, the "Old One" conspiring to bring about the rebirth of the Caliphate. Let us also not forget that the heroes of this story, Rakkim and Sarah, are both proud Muslims.

All that being said, let me just add that this is still one fantastic novel. Ferrigno incorporates the best elements of the thriller and the alternative history and future shock genres into one supercharged and gripping tale of a broken and demoralized America.

I believe Ferrigno is making some clever and pointed statements about the spiritual state of affairs in America with this book.
We now live in a land where the mall, not the church, is now the center of town. In a time when you need to wait in line for almost anything but a seat at church. More Americans nowadays care to know every triviality about their favorite actors, athletes, singers, even pornstars, than what is going on in their government, their religion, their world. Ferrigno created a world where these negative trends and selfish pursuits of ours might take us. The celebrity and the popular culture are what really matters for far too many Americans today. Note that where in real life the values of faith and family and tradition are still strong - the South and Utah, or amongst the Latino Catholic populations in the Southwest, Ferrigno has them in his novel to be either independent of the Islamic Republic or on the verge of rebellion.

Ferrigno's seems to understand that when you no longer believe in 'something,' you are now open to believe in 'anything.'