Customer Reviews

A Woman From Cairo

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just finished reading A Woman from Cairo and felt compelled to write a review about it. It's been a while since I came across a book that tested my own skills to read faster, turn the pages quicker and to put off all responsibilities just to get to the ending. My job and marriage are intact, so apparently the basics weren't ignored. It is that kind of a read and I thoroughly enjoyed it and would highly recommend it.

Living in Park City, Utah, I was certainly intrigued as much of the book centers around the Sundance Film Festival and our surrounding areas. Mr. Landi successfully portrayed the tone of our community and his accuracy as to the details is fascinating. For me, this is important to note because the book equally centers around the terrorists and their communities and includes much discussion regarding attitudes, local morays and the general Arab culture. I found it incredibly interesting and an important angle. Much was learned about what might be going through a terrorists mind and more importantly, why.

These two opposite landscapes of the book offer a fantastic tension that grips the reader. Are there two more completely different communities in the world... that of the Hollywood elite, The Sundance Film festival, and that of the underground terrorist organizations, bent to destroy all that the West stands for? Truly an amazing yarn he spins that is as honest a page turner if there ever was one!

I, for one, commend Mr. Landi on an excellent book. I look forward to his writing and myself reading more captivating and stimulating books in the future. His work is of the ilk that teases us with facts, intrigues us with characters and unravels a suspense that is impossible to put down.

Michael Cornu

Park City, Utah

"Couldn't put it down," as they say--complex characters, intricate plot twists and turns that kept me guessing up until the very end.

Author Val Landi strikes a nerve with his masterful portrayal of terrorists and operatives at the red hot core of the seething global conflict between Christianity and Islam--the central conflict of our time.

It doesn't matter where you stand politically--you will be moved, because this fast-moving tale draws strength from its passion and empathy for those caught up in the conflict--Killers, spies, filmmakers, journalists, and innocents alike.

Not unlike a cinematic experience, you will lose yourself in this one and gain a deeper understanding of the clash of civilizations as well.

I have just finished Val Landi's debut thriller, a solid debut with enough twists and turns to keep you reading long into the night.

Nicely paced the story pushes and pulls the reader from the streets of Cairo to the mountain areas of Utah with many stops in between. Starting with a documentary film maker who films the assassination of a fictionalized Osama bin Laden the story unfolds with plots of deception, murder and revenge leading up to suspenseful intrigue at a snowed in cabin and finally to a exciting conclusion at the Sundance Film Festival.

Overall a great debut and an author to watch for those who like their thrillers to keep them turning the pages long after they should have turned in for the night.

Steve Clackson - Author of Sand Storm.

http://sandstormauthor.blogspot.com

I'd like to tell a short, but true story about my experience with A Woman from Cairo. I received the book in manuscript on a cold, windy day in Manhattan last year. I was on my way back home, which was more than a few subway stops away, but could not wait to begin reading it. So, I randomly pulled out a good handful of chapters and began reading, even before my train arrived.

Two words: absolutely hooked. From page one forward, my fingers could not turn the pages fast enough. After reaching my subway stop, I spotted a local café and planted myself for the next two hours, reading, gasping aloud at times, curious and taken. People around me kept asking, `What are you reading?!'

Here's what is different, though, about this book. It pulls you in until the very last page. Finally, a book that didn't fizzle halfway through. It's a smartly-written, engaging literary experience that is both intriguing and educational.

The book's pacing is perfect (think Truman Capote's In Cold Blood). The characters are, as one publisher described, `vivid.' Sanna, the lead character and cipher leads us through her world of revenge, betrayal, murder, and espionage. Deep psychological wounds in childhood lead to these actions, creating a complex but incredibly interesting woman. Two very different characters than Sanna, Max and Ben, are the best pairing since Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. I couldn't wait for them to make a reappearance, and absolutely loved their manly banter.

A host of equally engaging secondary characters make their appearances: Mother Marie who heads the Christian orphanage in Alexandria, Egypt where Sanna spent part of her childhood and harbors a deadly secret; the brilliant and eccentric Mathias Kirkegaard, head of the secret NSA Red Cell team; Alika Safra, fiancé of the missing filmmaker who is living a treacherous lie that threatens to destroy her soul.

If you are someone in search of a truly great read, you need to get your hands on a copy of A Woman from Cairo.

The biggest mystery about this book is why no major publisher has taken it up (so far). It's a a page-turner, highly topical, and which succeeds in conveying a real flavor of the Middle East - and its tragedy (it's easy to see that the author has often visited the region). Added bonus: the most compelling villain that I have read for quite a while....one for the beach, if you can take the tension.

A Woman from Cairo is a thriller, set in the present day. Perhaps the easiest way to summarise this novel's quality is to say this: if you'd asked me to read it blind, without knowing anything about its origins, and if you had then told me that it was published by HarperCollins, and had got to number eight on the NY Times bestseller list, I wouldn't have been at all surprised. In other words, what we have here is a highly professional and polished piece of work.

That said, I do need to add that it is not absolutely out of the top drawer. It is not, for instance, as good as Martin Cruz Smith's Wolves Eat Dogs, Robert Littell's Legends, or Charles McCarry's Old Boys. All of those are worth six stars. But then all those guys have been doing the job for decades. If Val Landi sticks around, and goes on writing a book every year or two (as I hope he will), then in the course of time he will acquire just that little bit extra that the truly experienced writers have. But for a first book this is a strong one. I found it much more impressive, for instance, than the much-hyped The Traveler.

This is one smart novel - enlightening like nonfiction yet with characters and plot so vividly rendered I feel I've seen it at the movies... or on the news. But the news is never this much fun - taut with suspense.

Amidst page-turning action several worlds are brilliantly illuminated: the film industry with spotlights on the Sundance Film Festival and documentary filmmaking; the fascinating innerworkings of the intelligence industry and the National Security Agency's global surveillance network, Echelon; and an unflinching lense on the industry of terror, of Holy War rising in the Middle East - chockfull of historic insight, with Egypt a beautiful launchpad for this thriller.

Happily, it ends with a door open to a sequel. I hope it will be out soon.

Landi's writing is artistic, his message ominous yet hopeful and ultimately empowering. A great read - a timely and memorable story.

Val Landi's book A Women From Cairo is a novel that should come with a tag stating "Please, read this over a weekend!" Mr. Landi's *novel debut* will indeed keep one up into the wee hours of the morning. And leave you thinking about it for day's after you put it down. It is a fast pace thriller that is both entertaining and intelligent. In this interviewer's opinion it certainly is the intelligent alternative for the Da Vinci Code. One can easily understand why Amazon.com and others are comparing his work to Truman Capote. This maybe his *novel debut* I strongly feel and suspect we

will be fortunate to read many books from Val Landi in the future.

This is one of those rare sleeper novels that come out of nowhere to achieve underground cult status. It's as good as Forsyth's "Day of the Jackal" --it's a compelling suspense novel about the dominant theme of our century: the clash of civilizations. The story is dominated by a terrifying central character, the Oxford-educated daughter of the assassin of Anwar Sadat. One of the great joys of the novel is its accessability: three quarters of the action take place in the USA at Park City during the Sundance Film Festival. The climax and epilogue at Madrid's Prado Museum are worth the cover price alone.

The last fiction book I read that was as good as this on the topic of Middle East conflict and terrorism was "The Little Drummer Girl" by John LeCarre.

Val Landi has written a post 9/11 conspiracy thriller that also tries to imagine "what happens next". It is an ambitious premise, and one Mr Landi carries out with energy and verve. As a reader from the UK, I was struck by the author's empathy for all viewpoints. He does not judge, but shows the reader how people can become prepared to take what seem to us to be desperate measures, but which seem to them to be a logical extension of their histories.

Well done to Mr Landi for publishing this book; I wish him all success with this volume and the novels he will no doubt continue to write and publish in future.