A Woman from Cairo, cont.

The extremely generous and energetic Val Landi kindly sent me a copy of his book "A Woman from Cairo", which I have now read. (See earlier post for an update on the events surrounding publication of this novel.) The book is certainly, as promised, a racy read. It is not a genre I read often, so don't know how it compares with others covering similar themes of Middle East/Western conflicts post-9/11. Mr Landi's own blog, subtitled "Notes on technology, politics and religion") describes the publishing industry's reaction to his book on the topic, so there may not be many. As a reader I have some stylistic quibbles with "Cairo", but in the face of Mr Landi's generosity and enthusiasm, I'll draw a veil over those. He asked me to write a customer review on Amazon if I liked the book, which I have done, reproduced below. "The last 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 Le Carre. 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." Readers of Mr Landi's blog will be able to see what he's planning next. As he puts it, it is , for him, all about "the clash of media, technology and civilisations".