The Afghan is very different in that it projects the reader into today’s events and with such detailed and careful research that one could not be faulted for believing that you are privy to a top secret and confidential file. And in today’s scary world, an author could do no better.

The novel opens as the world’s listening agencies fear they have picked up a new Al Qaeda plot, one of such proportion that it will rival 9/11. They have been unsuccessful in finding anything out and have no reliable sources within the organization that are high up enough to know anything about it. Their best hope comes down to planting an undercover agent within.

Izmat Khan is an Afghan prisoner who has been at Guantanamo Bay for five years. Noted for his toughness and his silence, he has revealed nothing about the loss of his family to an American missile retaliatory strike or his role as a Taliban commander.

Colonel Mike Martin, a twenty-five year veteran of war zones, is retired in England. Born in the Middle East and raised in Iraq he is fluent in many of the languages. In the course of his service he had once been in the valley where Khan was raised and had met Khan and been instrumental in saving his life. This is not a debt Martin could trade on, as the Afghan’s hatred is so great that no effort is made to penetrate his impassivity.

To perfect the ruse, the unsuspecting Khan is tried by the authorities and the adjudication is to return him to Afghanistan. Instead he is removed to a remote facility in the US and Martin is returned in his place. An escape is arranged and Martin thus inserts himself as the escaping Khan with an American reward posted.

The pace quickens as Martin moves through the murky Afghan underworld escaping to Pakistan and coming to the notice of an Al Qaeda facilitator. The plot is real and all Martin knows for a long time is that it involves a ship, with the US as a presumed target, and that it originates in the seas off Malaysia.

Forsyth gives tremendous insight into the difficulties of such a undercover operation. Not the least of which are language and dialect problems, physical appearance, the exactness of the religious practice and the establishment of an identity that is credible to the hierarchy of the terrorist organization.

The Afghan is worthy not only as a masterful suspense story but also for its value in enlightening the reader about many Afghan and Taliban practices as well as critical historical background.

--Thea Davis