At Stalin's orders two teams of scientists and engineers competed to demonstrate the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb. Failure was not an option, and the loosing team was purged with no warning. Its records destroyed, and all of the key personnel eliminated, well, almost all. What happened to the team's work in progress? Forty years later The Group discovers the answer. The Rings of Allah is a grand saga in the genre of James Clavell's Shogun and Tia-Pan, with a little Clancy thrown in. Spanning over sixty years the story sweeps across Russia, central Asia, and into the United States. The cast of characters include Soviet scientists, radical Islamist, KGB officers, al-Qaeda terrorists, Usama bin Laden, and American businessmen, doctors, and government officials. Islam, Wahhabism, and the Soviet-Afghan war, provide the backdrop for the birth of al-Qaeda. The story proceeds into the future where a sleeper cell of al-Qaeda attempts to complete Usama bin Laden's master plan for the final strike against the Great Satan. This epic novel presents a realistic and frightening picture of how simple atomic weapons could be smuggled into and hidden in the U.S. The author has the background and knowledge to write a realistic, technically sound story that will leave no doubt as to the vulnerability of western civilization to terrorism and the threat of weapons of mass destruction. Yes, it can be done, and the Rings of Allah provides a thrilling and realistic story of one such plan. The main characters include an old but sharp Soviet nuclear weapons engineer; an idealistic young American Arab drawn into the Afghanistan Jihad who later becomes a conflicted soul; the American educated al-Qaeda cell leader who slowly slips into insanity; a beautiful blond venture capitalists, who is unwittingly ensnarled into the terrorist plot; an enterprising KGB officer and member of The Group; and
Award winning author Lee Boyland graduated from N.C. State University with a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering, and a commission as a 2nd Lt. In the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps After completing the U.S. Navy's Nuclear Weapons and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Schools he was assigned to the Defense Atomic Support Agency (DASA) in Albuquerque, NM as a member of its Nuclear Emergency Team responsible for nuclear weapons accidents including the rendering safe of armed nuclear warheads. He had access to the design details of every nuclear and thermonuclear warhead developed by the Unites States through the Mark 63 warhead. His duties took him to the Nevada Test Site on many occasions. After leaving the Army, he designed conventional and special ordnance and later demilitarized chemical weapons at Rocky Mountain Arsenal and Tooele Army Depot.
After Viet Nam, he interest shifted to hazardous waste, and he made the transition by applying aerospace combustion technology to incineration of Agent Orange. He went on to found a successful full service medical waste service company. He has started and purchased businesses, and currently writes and consults in the management of medical and special wastes in the U.S. and Asia.
Mr. Boyland is an active member of the Florida Writers Association, the Space Coast Writers' Guild and the Blueprints Book Club.
His award winning trilogy is based upon the Clash-of-Civilizations that occurred after a successful nuclear terrorist attack on the U.S. THE RINGS OF ALLAH won the Military Writers Society of America's 2007 Silver medal for fiction, and the second book of the trilogy, BEHOLD, AN ASHEN HORSE, won MWSA's 2008 Gold medal for fiction. AMERICA REBORN, the third book of the trilogy was released on July 27, 2009
He has started a spinoff series, Office of Analysis and Solutions (OAS). The first book, Pirates and Cartels was awarded the 2011 Silver Medal by MWSA.
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