Allah's Scorpion

Kirk McGarvey #11

by David Hagberg

Under the cover of a moonless night, al-Quaida operatives made their way inside the infamous Camp Delta prison on the American base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Their goal was to free five prisoners. But their attempt fails. The rescuers and prisoners, all former Iranian Navy submarine crewmen, were all killed. Their freedom was to be the first step in unleashing a deadly act of terrorism--a mission codenamed Allah's Scorpion.The CIA and Kirk McGarvey are called in, but first McGarvey must stop the destruction of the Panama Canal by a Venezuelan oil tanker rigged to explode in one of the locks. What seems to be an unrelated attack turns up the same cryptic code name.But this mission may prove to be the ultimate strike against America, a grand finale to what began on 9/11. A pair of Russian nuclear warhead missiles that were spirited into Lybia just before the invasion of Iraq have turned up on the radar, and they are in transit by sea to a undisclosed launch site in the Atlantic Ocean. Once again, Kirk McGarvey is the only man in the position to stop them--the only man capable of knocking out Allah's Scorpion.

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Spy Thriller

448 pages, Hardcover

First published December 26, 2006

About the author

aka David Bannerman, Sean Flannery, David James, Robert Pell, Eric Ramsey

David Hagberg is a former Air Force cryptographer who has traveled extensively in Europe, the Arctic, and the Caribbean and has spoken at CIA functions. He has published more than twenty novels of suspense, including the bestselling High Flight, Assassin, and Joshua's Hammer.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/davidh...

Reviews

[Daniel Stafford · Rating 2 out of 5]

Right-wing fiction is a fascinating thing to me. For one, I enjoy the praise displayed from critics and other authors of the same genre of anti-terrorist novels. One thing in particular that is enjoyable is when such praise describes how a book should be required reading in Washington DC. Of course, Allah's Scorpion is no exception.

The other thing I enjoy is they are action-packed. Reading one of these books is like watching an action film within a packed movie theater; especially if that movie requires no thought on the watcher's part and has a simplistic philosophy of kicking ass. These are the elements that gets a crowd going. I can imagine the same for a reader who follows the same ideology of the author and his/her fictional mouthpiece.

A mistake was made on my part when I decided to read this for fun: Allah's Scorpion is part of a character series of books, much like Clancy's Jack Ryan books. They star a gruff, all-too-serious, patriotic, pro-torture assassin named McGarvey. Of course, he is cut from an older cloth of American ideals. Of course he's out to get the job done. Of course he loves his wife very much – and, of course, he has to inform younger women that “another time and another place, I would”. Yes, McGarvey is the perfect male protagonist. Now, do not get me wrong, he is flawed, but his flaws are his appeal to readers who want to be in his situation and doing what he is getting done, which is essentially killing terrorists.

The plot goes a little bit like this. Osama bin Laden has in his pocket a British Royal Navy Submarine Captain who has an axe to grind and is rather good at shooting scores of people right between the eyes. And I do me scores of people. This guy kills so many people as one person. It is amazing, really.

So, Osama's people get a hold of a submarine, and with the help of Libya (who is holding the Weapons of Mass Destruction that we never found because Saddam gave them all to Libya before we invaded [“Of course!” doth cry suspicious American readers:]) is able to arm that Sub with a load of nuclear bombs (and a side of Anthrax for those who try to come aboard the Sub).

Yes. At first I was enjoying the book because it was thoughtless fluff that was rather fun to read. But, toward the end, I couldn't help but see how predictable things were getting and how utterly inane it was becoming.

As I said, though, this is my fault. It's a book from part of a series, and the sort of situation of reading a bad book should not have happen if only I followed the series. (And believe everything the author was saying to be fact rather than just a story).

I am sorry, but I am just not that gullible.

[Kayeb · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sort of genre and style I essentially like....but oh please... to have a woman make a fool of herself because she has fallen in love wtih the lead character after about a minute.... this author seems to have a pretty piss poor concept of realistic character development. It rminded me of a plot strategy since he wasn't creative enough to come up with a better way to get the woman in the same area as the lead expect to have her follow him out of obsessive love.

Under the cover of a moonless night, al-Qaida operatives made their way inside the infamous Camp Delta prison on the American base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Their goal was to free five prisoners, but they failed. The rescuers and prisoners, all former Iranian Navy submarine crewmen, were killed. Investigators discover that this mission was supposed to be the first step in unleashing a deadly act of terrorisman operation code-named Allahs Scorpion. The CIA and Kirk McGarvey are called in, but first McGarvey must stop the destruction of the Panama Canal by a Venezuelan oil tanker rigged to explode in one of the locks. What seems at first to be an unrelated attack turns up the same cryptic code name. Allahs Scorpion may prove to be the ultimate strike against America, a grand finale to what began on 9/11. A pair of Russian nuclear missiles that were spirited into Libya just before the invasion of Iraq have turned up in transit to a undisclosed launch site in the Atlantic Ocean. Kirk McGarvey is the only man in position to stop themthe only man capable of knocking out Allahs Scorpion. [close:]

[Jacob Peled · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s problematic to read, in 2025, a political terrorism thriller that was published in 2006 and likely written around 2004–2005. Many elements now appear somewhat ridiculous. The main reason isn’t the concept behind the planning of the terror event itself, but rather the inclusion of famous figures in the story. Bin Laden and Gaddafi are woven into the plot as part of the events. Similarly, I didn’t appreciate that the narrative involves the President of the United States, the head of the CIA, and other senior officials.
It also strikes me as absurd that the central protagonist—assigned a role more suited to a young operative—is actually a retiree and a former CIA director. Honestly, come on.
I read 55% of the book and realized it simply wasn’t engaging me at all. So I gave up. Time to move to a new book.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another "more than serviceable" entry in the MacGarvey series...while NOT to the level of Tom Clancy or Vince Flynn, certainly well within their ballparks...Mac, called out of retirement bliss is corralled into stopping OBL attacks on the West...1st the Panama Canal & later a submarine attack to out mainland...no surprises here...you get what you expect from David Hagberg, a bang-up, edge-of-your-seat, page-turning international thriller...good stuff!!!

[Flash Floyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd read some poor reviews of the Kirk McGarvey series. This book had better reviews than most, so I gave it a try. I enjoyed most of the book. McGarvey was a little stereotypical of the international spy, but the action flowed well. I didn't care for the ending of this book though. I'll try another in the series at some point.

[Rock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my favorite of the series.
McGarvey is usually a believable character and the stories are mostly believable as well, but this one seemed a bit over-the-top, though still a typical Hagberg good story.
Also there were several "loose ends" which is unusual.
It feels sort of like the start of a 2 volume arc or trilogy perhaps, which would be cool but there's no indication of such on this site or elsewhere that I've seen.

[Ernest · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book, good read

[Michael Geiger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not near Clancy's quality.

[Al · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding, a real page turner

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another 'edge of your seat' thriller by David Hagberg. To enjoy Hagberg's Kirk McGarvey books it is necessary to overlook reason and logic for the sake of enjoyment just as it is with the escapades of James Bond, Mitch Rapp, Alex Hawke, Dewey Andreas, John Wells, Gabriel Allon. Each of these literary characters face dangers and solve almost impossible problems, making them heroes to their readers.
In Allah's Scorpion, American assassin and ex-director of the CIA Kirk McGarvey is joined by colorful characters (including his good friend and colleague Otto Rencke, his wife Katy) to stop a follower of Osama bin Laden in a deadly act of terrorism.
Hagberg's novels read as if they were the stories of current events. Anyone who likes novels of international intrigue and suspense will most likely become a fan of David Hagberg and his fictional champion, Kirk McGarvey.

[Kiran Majeti · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found that the plot of the story in Allah’s Scorpion was immensely pleasing. First, I loved how the author took all these seemingly unrelated events together to create the final masterplan that Kirk Mcgarvey has to stop. I especially how most of the battles happened in the headquarters of both sides(CIA, and Al Qaeda), by the thinkers. This accurately portrays what the main purpose of intelligence agencies is to do, find and use intelligence. From a purely storyline point of view, the book is wonderful. Unfortunately, the book was rather shallow with no really deep, or hidden message that you usually find in books. Out of 10, I would give this book a 7-8.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aparrantly this is one in a line of books with a central character involved in espionage. Very much like Clancy's work. Maybe not as good, maybe just fine. Feels like a knock-off, but maybe only because I was familiar with Clancy first. Fun read and I'll look for more of the stories involving these characters.

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not a bad book at all, I just never found myself really getting into it. I've not read other books in the series, but the protagonist just seemed a little too cliche. It was at least good enough that I finished it to see how it ended.

[Tommy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was good but not as good as some of his earlier books. It does have the same lead character as most of his earlier books.

[Marianne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Up to this book, I have really enjoyed the Kirk McCarvey series, but they have seemed to get more unrealistic, and in Allah's Scorpion, I wanted to slap McCarvey's wife Kate and tell her to grow up!

[Don Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. If you like Mitch Rapp in Vince Flynn's series you will love Kirk McGarvey.

[Toesnorth's mom]

good, Clancy type, probably a lot of truth