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Book Review of The Devil's Garden

The Devil's Garden
The Devil's Garden
Author: Ralph Peters
Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
reviewed on + 313 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2


An American aid worker is kidnapped from a refugee camp in Azerbaijan. Since she is a senator's daughter, many forces with different agendas converge. Lt. Col. Evan Burton, assigned to the embassy in Baku, starts searching for the girl and discovers that there is more at stake than his, or her, life. Among the more enchanting characters are an Azeri general who betrays everyone but his own conscience, a warlord and heroin producer, a beautiful German spy, an honorable American ambassador, and the most revolting collection of Big Oil and diplomatic elite scum ever assembled. In the end, the kidnapping is trivial compared with a billion dollars of oil, but Burton has principles. Peters, a U.S. Army officer and author of seven geopolitical thrillers has an eye for the grubby realities of life in the Third World, and his portraits of desperate men pushed by events beyond their cognizance are more convincing than one finds in most thrillers.