Book Recommended by Ranjini Rajeev

The Fist of God is a suspense novel by the bestselling British author Frederick Forsyth. It’s a thriller that brilliantly blends fact with fiction for one of the summer's – or any season's – most explosive reads!

From the behind-the-scenes decision-making of the Allies to the secret meetings of Saddam Hussein's war cabinet, from the brave American fliers running their dangerous missions over Iraq to the heroic young spy planted deep in the heart of Baghdad, Forsyth's incomparable storytelling skill keeps the suspense at a breakneck pace.  

Somewhere in Baghdad is the mysterious "Jericho," the traitor willing – for a price – to reveal what is going on in the high councils of the Iraqi dictator.  But Saddam's ultimate weapon has been kept secret even from his most trusted advisers, and the nightmare scenario that haunts General Schwarzkopf and his colleagues is suddenly imminent unless, somehow, the spy can locate that weapon – The Fist of God – in time. 

Peopled with vivid characters, brilliantly displaying Forsyth's incomparable, knowledge of intelligence operations and tradecraft, moving back and forth between Washington and London, Baghdad and Kuwait, desert vastnesses and city bazaars, this breath-taking novel is an utterly convincing story of what may have happened behind the headlines.

In The Fist of God, the scene that struck the reader was when the hero, if you could call him that – Major Mike Martin – goes into Iraq, for a black operation.

Forsyth’s style of writing and the detailing are brilliantly done without altering history.