The Martyr's Prize Review
Brooks William Kelley
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks a wave of patriotic fervor swept America. A fervor unseen since, and possibly even greater than, December 7, 1941. Civilians were targeted, after all, in the most heinous and cold-blooded fashion.
It seemed nearly every American wanted revenge. Many wanted to take some sort of active part in it. The ranks of the military swelled. Everyone from kids out of high school to students delaying college to football players with multi-million dollar contracts, all dropped what they were doing and signed up.
Others, beyond enlistment age or with other constraints, sought other ways to help in the fight, to hopefully make a positive impact on the war. Folks like Pastorius or Epaminondas or Revere Rides Again or Always on Watch or Rusty Shackleford or Ronin or Howie or Pam Geller or Robert Spencer or myself took to blogging. Writing about it to bring attention to the existential threat in our midst, exposing the nature of the Beast lurking in the shadow.
Far too many simply took the President's advice and went shopping. And continued to ignore the howling and scratching at their doors, ably aided and abetted by a socially corrupt, morally bankrupt, and criminally negligent media who now, nine years on, would have you believe that 9/11 was not THAT bad.
Enterprising college students Jason Lanford and Kyle Simms chose an altogether different path for their fight. Ballsy to the core, they created a how-to manual for building a bomb. But with a little twist. They altered the instructions enough so that, instead of blowing up as the bomb maker would intend, it blew up during its assembly stage.
They enlisted the help of fellow student Matt McCormick, a man with a shadowy Special Forces past, to translate the instructions to Arabic, with the understanding his involvement ended there. Then their friend and NSA employee Alex Cole helped them hack the University's computers and post it on the Internet under the name of a real Jihadi.
In short order Muslims worldwide suddenly began experiencing work related accidents, premature eruptions and detonations. Including one in their native Boulder, Colorado.
When the Jihad finally figured out what was going on, they dispatched, from London's Finsbury Mosque, Abdullah Melki, a seething homicidal sociopathic nightmare of Islamic hate and rage that would make The Ripper look like a pansy-ass rank amateur. He slipped into the United States by coyote across the border from Mexico and began to hunt down the infidels responsible.
As his friends began to fall to Melki's swift and sure blade, McCormick decided he needed to up his involvement and, at great risk to his freedom and career, set out not on personal revenge, but on a reckoning.
This is the premise of The Martyr's Prize, a terrific first outing of a thriller by Brooks William Kelley.
As you become engrossed in the story of one individual's small battle against The Great Jihad you realize that Brooks Kelley understands and believes in this fight deep in his soul.
The hero -- a term used guardedly because he wouldn't characterize himself as such -- Matt McCormick is a former Special Forces operative now working contract security jobs while attending college. He understands duty and honor and that there is often a purpose greater than oneself for which to live, fight, and very possibly die. He's also a bit of an adrenaline junky, getting immense satisfaction as he puts all his skills and training to good use toward the desired outcome. Sitting still behind a desk would never be an option for this man.
McCormick, though, is no soulless assassin. Throughout the story he questions and hides the dichotomy of his being, working to keep the detached, emotionless operative separate and distinct from his personal relationships. Reconciling the (often wet) work he does with civilian life. And hoping no one notices "the beast in the mist".
There is enough technotalk to make any Tom Clancy fan happy, but not so much as to make one's eyes glaze over. The author is not trying to impress anyone with lengthy detailed paragraphs about a small listening device. Paragraphs that would have you instead reaching for an Ian Flaming novel. He keeps the story smart, the action sharp, and the word quick.
Each chapter he opens with a story taken from blogs or news articles over the last few years. Stories anyone who has seriously followed this war will recognize and remember, whether it's about would-be suicide bombers self detonating, the fate of Abu "Hook" Al-Hamza , corruption in the House of Saud or Predator missile strikes. It all adds to the veracity of his story. This is not something a writer is just pulling out of the air. Not impossible or even improbable but very believable. As one TeeVee show is so fond of saying, stories ripped right from the headlines.
Largely because of the Main Stream Media, Americans have developed a short attention span and no stomach for the prolonged fight. Had we captured or killed bin Laden at Tora Bora, that very likely would have been the end of it, much to our peril.
But we didn't and bin Laden's fate remains murky at best. So Americans have resigned him to being the bogeyman in the closet, the monster under the bed. An Islamic aberration, not the way of true Islam. Stuffed down deep where he can't pop out and hurt us again. We should instead embrace the peaceful aspects of the religion.
This is, of course, whistling past the graveyard. Brooks Kelley understands that and is calling bullllshit to it.
He also knows that it is, ultimately, not just the great armies that are going to win or lose this war. It is going to take millions of Matt McCormicks, Jason Lanfords, Kyle Simms, Pastorius's, Rusty Shacklefords and Brooks William Kelleys to see this thing through to the end. Each doing their part toward the whole.
He understands, as do so many others fighting or teaching or writing about it, that although what America wanted after 9/11 was revenge, what America, Western Civilization, and Western Culture needs to survive post 9/11 is not revenge, but a reckoning with Islam.
And he knows how to tell a good story, thereby firing a warning shot over the heads of Brad Thor and Vince Flynn. He has intentionally left enough loose ends that it is obvious Matt McCormick's missions are far from over.
As are ours.
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