Review – The Twelfth Imam

Ten-year-old Roya hid on the upper stairway and overheard the black-turbaned cleric speak to her parents below. “Allah has sent me to your home to heal little Roya.”

She couldn’t see her parent’s face but imagined they were stunned like she was. Then she heard the man tell what her family had done yesterday, from the flight to Qom for her birthday, the mosque they visited even the prayer they wrote together. Her father finally asked, “Who are you?”

At that, Roya, mute from birth, descended the stairs, inexplicably drawn forward. The cleric reached out to her, praying in an unknown tongue and she fell to the ground, writhing in convulsions that stopped at his touch. When she opened her eyes, the dark-eyed stranger helped her to her feet where she began to “speak…sing…and shout praises,” while her parents “wept with joy.”

Meanwhile, CIA operative David Shirazi selected because of his foreign language skills and early connections to Iran, surfed the web waiting to board the plane and resume his deep cover in Iran. When he read the Ayatollah’s speech,”…today…fall of the satanic power of the United States…countdown to annihilation…prepare for a world without the United States.,” Shirazi’s fears, ridiculed by the main office, were reborn.

Superiors had ignored his warnings, the reports of religious fervor sweeping the country, Iran’s growing nuclear capability and the possibility of nuclear war. Revolutionary extremists now openly talked about miracles and strange appearances of the long-looked-for Mahdi or The Twelfth Imam. If the reports were true Shirazi feared the appearances would trigger the prophesied Islamic End of Days, otherwise known as the Apocalypse.

Thus begins the first book in Joel C. Rosenberg’s new political series, The Twelfth Imam. The story could be ripped from today’s headlines featuring a nuclear Iran intent on the destruction of “little Satan,” Israel, and “big Satan,” the United States.

Rosenberg’s complex story spans the globe, with likeable, well-developed, multi-cast characters, some developed from childhood. The storyline includes subtle romance, family entanglements, thrilling suspense and such edge-of-your-seat plotting; the book is a compelling page-turner that leaves you awake into the wee hours.

The author puts fictional names and faces to the threat of an apocalyptic Middle East nuclear war that could “bring about the End of Days.” This is not one to miss. If you weren’t a Rosenberg fan, you will be by books end.