- Hardcover: 1060 pages
- Publisher: Warner Books Inc
- ISBN-10: 0739411322
- ISBN-13: 978-0739411322
- Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 16.5 x 5.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 1.3 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (430 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon.com
John Corey and Asad Khalil have both lived hard-knock lives. As revealed in Nelson DeMille's monster bestseller Plum Island, the gruff, wisecracking NYPD homicide cop Corey stopped a hail of bullets--but he couldn't stop his wife from walking out on him. Asad, raised under Muammar Qaddafi's eye after his dad's murder, lost his surviving family in the 1986 bombing of Libya. He's heard the nasty rumors about his mom and the colonel, but he aims his rage at the infidels. The boy's got such a gift for terrorism he's earned the nickname "the Lion," and Boris, his vodka-sozzled, sex-addicted émigré mentor, knows precisely how to conduct a murder tour of America one step ahead of the police, the FBI, the CIA, and the ATTF (Anti-Terrorist Task Force), which combines members of all three. A pity Boris must die, but hey, he's an infidel too.
Asad pretends to defect, handcuffed to agents aboard a 747 bound for JFK, and he proves to be a worse seatmate than a siding salesman. Corey and his ATTF colleagues (most conspicuously the FBI's sexy Kate Mayfield, Corey's match in badinage and bad-guy busting) strive to halt Asad's methodical yet unpredictable bloodbath. Skillfully, DeMille alternates chapters told from Asad's and Corey's points of view. DeMille did his authenticity homework: when we're not savoring his gift for wiseacre dialogue in the Corey-Kate chapters, we're sweating alongside Asad on his ghastly, ingenious jihad.
The New York Times put DeMille's social satire on a par with Edith Wharton's, and he's great on the colliding folkways of the feuding, mutually doublecrossing crimebuster institutions. Naturally, he's on the side of the regular-guy flatfoots. "Cops sit on their asses and flip through their folders," he writes. "Feds sit on their derrieres and peruse their dossiers." And the CIA gets it in the shorts, satirically speaking. One deplores the mass murderers, but the book's real bad guys wear the priciest suits.
DeMille reportedly has a $25 million book contract. With fast, funny, absorbing thrillers like The Lion's Game, he's earned it. --Tim Appelo --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
John Corey, former NYPD Homicide detective and star of DeMille's Plum Island, is back in this breezily narrated high-octane thriller about the hunt for a Libyan terrorist who has set his sights on some very specific targets--the Americans who bombed Libya on April 15, 1986. The novel begins with a tense airport scene--a transcontinental flight from Paris is flying into New York, and no one has been able to contact the pilot via radio. On the flight is Asad Khalil, a Libyan defector who will be met by Special Contract Agent Corey, his FBI "mentor" Kate Mayfield, and the rest of the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force. But when the plane lands, everyone on board is dead--except Khalil, who disappears after attacking the ATTF's airport headquarters. Has he left the country? Not if John Corey's right--and we know he is, thanks to gripping third-person chapters detailing Khalil's mission alternating with Corey's easy-going first-person narration. And by making Khalil, who lost most of his family in the 1986 bombing, as much of a protagonist as Corey, DeMille adds several shades of gray to what in less skillful hands might have been cartoonishly black and white. If anything, the reader ends up rooting for the bad guy, Khalil, with his mission of vengeance, is a more complex character than John Corey, who never drops his ex-cop bravado (thus trivializing a romance that moves from first date to proposal of marriage within the few days the plot covers). But as usual, DeMille artfully constructs a compulsively readable thriller around a troubling story line, slowly developing his villain from a faceless entity into a nation's all-too-human nemesis. Agent, Nick Ellison. 500,000 first printing; major ad/promo; BOMC main selection; 12-city author tour; Time-Warner audio. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
THE SLEEPING LION WAKES...,
By
This review is from: The Lion's Game (Mass Market Paperback)
I confess that I love the character, John Corey, the tough talking, wise-cracking NYPD homicide detective that the author first introduced in his mega bestseller, "Plum Island". I was, therefore, delighted to find him headlining this novel. No longer with NYPD, John Corey is now with the federal government's Anti-Terrorist Task Force (ATTF).
When a Libyan terrorist, Asad Khalil, known as "the Lion" decides to defect to the West, a jumbo jet from Paris carrying him, as well as hundreds of other passengers, is approaching the runway at JFK airport in New York City. The plane has been incommunicado and remains so, when it lands. Something is terribly wrong. Asad Khalil is apparently on a mission, and his goal is to kill by any means necessary all those who were involved in the 1986 bombing of Libya that killed his family. He leaves a swath of carnage as he seeks to complete his personal jihad. John Corey and ATTF colleague, FBI agent Kate Mayfield join forces, and when these two are not busy trading light-hearted banter, they are at the top of their game in trying to stop Asad Khalil from completing his mission. This is a top-notch action thriller. The author is definitely at the top of his game with this book. The book presents perspectives of both John Corey and Asad Khalil, so that the reader knows what makes them each tick. Great dialogue, non-stop action, and interesting characters, including one of the most intriguing and interesting villains of all time, are some of the hallmarks of this page-turner. With a fiendishly clever plot, peppered with many twists and turns, this novel is sure to thrill those readers who enjoy action packed thrillers. I loved this book!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding Read,
By Robert Wainger (Coral Gables, FL USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Lion's Game (Mass Market Paperback)
Lion's Game is the first Demille novel I have read, and I was thrilled with it. I had difficulty putting it down. It was interesting that when I looked up Demille on Amazon, it mentioned, among other similar auithors, John Forsythe, who wrote Day of the Jackal. I read that one thirty years ago and considered it great. The movie or its remake did not do it justice. While reading Lion's Game, before seeing that reference on Amazon, the book frequently reminded me of Day of the Jackal.Anyway, Demille's book portrays the travels of a Libyan killer, Asad Khalil, who travels about the United States, seeking to avenge the bombing raid on Libya that occurred in 1986. The book takes place in 2000. It also follows the work of the hero, John Corey, a NYPD detective, temporarily assigned to the FBI's Counterterrorism unit. Demille is able to put the reader inside the heads of both his main characters as the story progresses. The suspense builds rapidly and the reader is locked into the story within a few pages. Demille's writing style is excellent. He balances suspense with humor, and while parts of the story are a bit contrived, it never goes overboard in that way. I would strongly recomment this book to anyone liking spy or detective stories, and I am looking forward to reading another of his books.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Lion's Game (Mass Market Paperback)
I read this book before 9/11 and at the time found it contrived, flippant and generally disappointing. After 9/11, I find it extremely offensive.The book begins rather well with a riveting description of the bombing mission over Lybia in 1986 and proceeds downward from there. Asad Khalil, the terrorist du jour, lost his family in that bombing raid while concurrently deflowering his reluctant girlfriend in defiance of the law, religion, etc. He also murders said girlfriend at the same time to stop her from screaming in fright as the bombs drop near their rooftop love nest. This, in his twisted way of thinking, gives him one more reason to hate the vile Americans. Swearing vengeance - and possibly to escape his own death sentence based on his tryst on the roof - Khalil vows to make the Americans pay. He receives training in the necessary skills to murder and maim from a dubious character named "Boris" and presto-chango turns from a bungling juvenile rapist into a brilliant terrorist operative who can thwart the powers that be at every turn. From that point on there are so many twists and turns in the story it makes one sea sick. No matter how absurd the circumstances, Khalil manages to be three or four steps ahead of everybody while killing infidels left and right. Enter John Corey complete with a new girlfriend, Kate, (what ever happened to the "love of his life" from Plum Island?) to somewhat save the day. Never mind that just about everybody is dead by the time Corey and Kate manage to figure things out. DeMille's books up to now have been quite good. I especially liked Plum Island. Corey's quick witted character fed up with administrative overkill and bungling in that book made sense. The John Corey in "The Lion's Game" has the same "I-don't-give-a-rip" attitude, only this time his witticisms come off as juvenile and very annoying. To sum up my feelings at the end of the book - the weak come off as strong and the strong end up dead. If you like that kind of plot, you will love this one.
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