A Fictional Tale as Authentic as Reality

Richard North Patterson is one of my favorite writers.  Although he is technically a fictional novelist, some of his books are so close to reality that they nearly cancel out the imaginary nature of his tales.

One of Patterson's best, a real thriller.

“The Devil’s Light,” written in 2011, three years after one of America’s greatest crises, is a story of intrigue, deception and terrorism – a tale of cunning and espionage so realistic in its depiction of events that it becomes credible:  a nuclear attack upon . . . . Well, I don’t want to give away Patterson’s very intricate, can’t-put-down-the-book, spider web of a plot.

Patterson is not a mere weaver of stories.  Like many of his other books, this one is suffused with the result of in-depth research and prior consultation with prominent persons who have walked the talk.  His writing resonates with reality.

In some ways, he is a prophet – but then again, who listens to prophets?

Here are a few quotations from “The Devil’s Light,” thoughts ascribed to the book’s characters as the story swiftly progresses:

“As a nation we’re addicted to wishful thinking, staggering from crisis to crisis with the foresight of a two-year old.

Amid the Chaos of Terror, a Bit of Refreshing Solitude

Springtime at the Sayen Gardens,
Hamilton, New Jersey.

Decades ago, high up on the promontory of Seminary Hill in Bucksport, Maine, I regularly enjoyed a perfect view of the Penobscot River as it flows into the funnel-like neck of Penobscot Bay that opens wide its island-strewn mouth all the way down east, where it eventually greets Mount Desert Island off the coast of The Pine Tree State.

From atop that hill, I took many walks during each season.  One of the most enjoyable of those strolls occurred at the advent of spring, after the end of mud season in Maine.
 
In one particular spot, at the crest of that hill, there lay a long, wide, colorful bed of brilliantly yellow daffodils – far more than I could count. 

Each year, prodded by warm breezes and the encouraging rays of the sun, they rose from the life-giving earth, “tossing their heads in sprightly dance.”

Newtown

When Priscille and I first heard of the horrific murders which took place at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the name immediately struck a chord.
 
Newtown, I remembered, is a location that we pass through when we travel to New England.  Part of our route crosses the Nutmeg State in a northeasterly direction, as we connect with Interstate 84 near Danbury.
 
On the way back home, we simply reverse direction, enter Connecticut from the Mass. Pike, and hook up with I-84 south towards Hartford.   
 
Every single time on those trips, we pass over a highway bridge bearing a sign announcing Newtown.  Deep below courses a narrow, dark blue stream dotted with homes along its shoreline.

It Wasn’t Merely the Video . . .

Ambassador Susan Rice addresses the U.N. on Benghazi killings.

. . . which precipitated the assassination of United States Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, together with three other Americans in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, the 11^th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Towers in New York City.  Not at all.

Yet, that is precisely what we were told by Obama Administration spokespersons – even, it seems, by President Barack Obama himself. 

During an appearance before the United Nations – an event transmitted to the world – U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice declared that the sordid video disparaging Islam and its Prophet Mohammed was the motivation that instigated a gathering of demonstrators which – in a spontaneous uprising – moved violently against Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans.

A Symbol with Impact

Tonight the President will lay out his case for more U.S. troops to be deployed in Afghanistan. He will deliver his speech from the United States Military Academy at West Point, in New York State.

It’s a first, because modern presidents have delivered such addresses to the nation from the Oval Office. I don’t know why he has chosen that venue. Presumably he will explain it this evening.

But I firmly believe that if he wanted a symbol for expanding the war, then he could have chosen a location that depicts much more graphically the results of warfare – our dead and wounded – like, for example, the site of the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial.

I was there Sunday, and I assure you, my respected readers, that The Wall and the statues underscore the carnage of that conflict much more realistically than the one the President chose to rationalize what he is about to do. But if he delivered that address near The Wall, what impact would it have on his credibility?

Photo by Dick Bergeron:  Vietnam Nurses War Memorial, Washington, D.C.

An Afternoon of Reflection in Washington, D.C.

With the Thanksgiving holiday coming to an end this Sunday and the good weather making it feel more like early spring, Priscille and I, as guests of the Potomac, Maryland branch of the family, decided to drive into our nation’s Capital. Destination: the war memorials, all within easy walking distance of each other.

I wanted very much to visit those places of reverence again, because America is now at a critical juncture in its multi-front struggle against the extreme elements of worldwide, violent Jihadist terrorism.

Early in the afternoon, we paid our respects at The Vietnam War Nurses Memorial; the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall; the statues of The Three Soldiers; the Korean War Veterans Memorial and the World War II Memorial.

It was my second visit to those shrines, and the one which has always tugged at me most is The Vietnam Wall: It’s all those seemingly endless names etched on black stone remembering Americans who never returned home. And the whispered silence of visitors as they walk slowly along the rise and fall of that great stone wall, stopping randomly, touching the stone at times, staring at those names, and waiting for an explanation. “Why?”

Vietnam cost America dearly in blood, money and spirit. The war against Jihadist extremists, a very real threat to the West, will cost us just as dearly if it is as badly directed from Washington as was that long-ago conflict in the rice paddies, jungles and tunnels of Vietnam.

The Lone Terrorism of a Lone Killer

I’m watching the beginning of a broadcast of the memorial ceremony for U.S. Soldiers who were killed and wounded on one of our largest military bases, Ft. Hood, Texas. The preliminary music has just stopped and I am anticipating the rest of the program, including an address by President Barack Obama.

Last Thursday, after first hearing of this incredibly heinous act of evil, I was subsequently taken aback in the following days by the official Washington response in which the word “terrorism” was never used. Instead, we heard only platitudes about how there was no evidence that the alleged murderer, Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan, may have acted conspiratorially: As if anyone allegedly acting unilaterally should keep this crime from being designated as an act of terrorism.

But one stalwart Washington leader, Senator Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said he will hold hearings. He is one of the few who has the courage to describe this brutal act: The senator declared, “This was an attack on American troops. You've got to see it as if 12 American troops were killed in Afghanistan." Lieberman went on to call it "The worst terrorist attack since 9/11."

Good for him.  It’s a welcome recess from a type of political correctness which has transformed segments of our population into a bunch of sops.

We in New Jersey are honored to have a direct connection with this tragedy – Private Second Class Alan Carroll, a 2007 graduate of Bridgewater-Raritan High School. A wounded survivor, he plans to return to this area, on leave to celebrate the holidays with his family.


Material for some of this post came from the Courier News, The Star-Ledger, The Nation, and The Hill