Beriut Trilogy Series by Fleming, Preston
Beriut Trilogy #1
Bride of a Bygone War (Beriut Trilogy 2)
Fleming, Preston
The second book in the Beirut Trilogy, BRIDE OF A BYGONE WAR is set in the spring of 1981, following the American elections, when Lebanon hopes for fresh political winds that might end their seven-year civil war. Enter Walter Lukash, a midlevel CIA officer assigned as intelligence liaison to the Phalange militia. Lukash soon becomes a pawn in a Levantine game intended to draw the U.S. into conflict with Lebanon's Syrian occupiers. Unfortunately, Lukash is too distracted by problems arising from having abandoned his Lebanese bride five years earlier to see the trap until it springs. SYNOPSIS:Beirut, 1981. Walter Lukash, a journeyman CIA case officer, has been posted in the Middle East for eight straight years and is ready for a quiet desk job back in Washington. When he is ordered to Beirut instead for a two-month secret liaison assignment with the Phalange militia's intelligence unit, his superiors believe they understand his reluctance to accept. What they don't know is that, five years earlier, Lukash secretly married a Lebanese woman against Agency rules and abandoned her soon after the outbreak of war. More than that, his new Irish live-in girlfriend, whom the Agency considers a security risk, has followed him to Beirut from Amman and Lukash has defied orders to break off the relationship. When the two-month assignment is extended to two years, Lukash realizes he can no longer avoid painful realities and choices. But before he can straighten things out, he is caught in a deadly three-way intrigue between the Phalange, the U.S. government and Lebanon's ruthless Syrian occupiers that threatens to unleash the full force of Syrian-backed terrorism against Americans in Beirut. BRIDE OF A BYGONE WAR captures the unique atmosphere of Civil War Beirut with a lively and intelligent style that draws the reader into deep identification with the characters and the action.Review"A CIA agent in Beirut fears his past has caught up to him in the riveting second volume of the Beirut Trilogy. The winding plotlines make for a gloriously elaborate story as the drama plays against a fiery backdrop of civil war. The inescapable violence acts as a foreboding presence: a cease-fire breaks the night the agent arrives in Beirut, where he sleeps in a building riddled with bullets as explosions light up the sky. The rapidly developing plot burns through pages faster than the first time Fleming took us to Beirut. An intelligent thriller teeming with vigor." KIRKUS REVIEWS "Fleming provides a sharp sense of place and time. The various threads mesh fairly well in a believable portrait of how professional liars and secret-keepers navigate love and war. The well-machined flow of the story displays Fleming's skill as a writer of literate, thoughtful thrillers that have more to share than a mastery of genre mechanics." PACIFIC BOOK REVIEW "BRIDE OF A BYGONE WAR is an engaging look at the Lebanese war. BRIDE has the feel of an insider's look behind the secrecy and complexity of the multiple players in the region. Beyond the people that Fleming writes about, it is the setting that really shines. The descriptions of the city and the countryside, along with the ebb and flow of daily life really make BRIDE shine outside of the conventional spy thriller." SAN FRANCISCO BOOK REVIEW"An intelligence officer who has dodged making decisions and cleaning up his messes is forced to face the consequences, showing resourcefulness and decency...when at last he must. Fleming does know how to spin a yarn... his fiction has more verisimilitude than many others in the genre." BOOKPLEASURES.COMFrom the AuthorI wrote Dynamite Fishermen and Bride of a Bygone War to clear my head after eleven years of government service in places like Beirut, Cairo, Tunis, Jeddah, and Amman. I had already decided to write novels at age fourteen, during my first year as a boarding student at Exeter. My English instructor, a World War II combat veteran, advised those of us who wanted to follow the path of Melville, Conrad and Hemingway to first go out and live some adventures so that we would have stories that people might want to read. My adventures started in the Middle East and continued in Washington, Europe, the Russian Far East, Maui, Utah, New York and Boston. Though my most recent novels are set in a future dystopian America, I intend to write more stories set in the Middle East before long.
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Beriut Trilogy #2
Dynamite Fishermen (Beriut Trilogy 1)
Fleming, Preston
FROM SAN FRANCISCO BOOK REVIEW American Embassy worker Conrad Prosser simply can’t catch a break in Fleming’s captivating novel. Despite his fluency in Arabic and impeccable record of gathering intelligence, he’s overlooked for promotion. Then he discovers he’s being followed. Perhaps his affair with the beautiful Rima (sister of a prospective agent) will help soothe his soul – although that, too, seems unlikely to last. The beauty in the story lies in Fleming’s description of the ways people carry on in the face of daily violence. Markets close during the violence, but open at the first sign of cease-fire. Nightlife continues to throb with people looking for a good time and a strong drink. Love blossoms and dies. Jobs are gained and lost. Fleming’s understanding of the way individuals carry on despite the turmoil seems genuine and spot on. Set in the mid-80’s Beirut, Dynamite Fishermen is an absolute stunner of a novel. It’s clear Fleming has done his research and it shows in the seamless dialogue and the ease at which he tackles the task of conveying the wartime ambiance. This is a must-read for history buffs – although I feel strongly everyone will enjoy the rapid pace and captivating suspense. Preston Fleming is a writer deserving of many accolades. FROM PACIFIC BOOK REVIEW In Dynamite Fishermen, set in Beirut in the early 1980's, Preston Fleming depicts heedless violence as a way of life from the perspective of an American intelligence officer. The story falls during a lull in the long running Lebanese civil war, a period plagued by almost daily car bombings, civilian shootings, artillery attacks and other mayhem. The complexities of the Arab-Israeli conflict and inter-Arab conflicts play out in small clashes throughout Beirut, making it a microcosm of the Middle East. Conrad Prosser is an American intelligence agent whose routine is to meet with his local contacts and glean whatever news will help to analyze the overlapping conflicts. His constant exposure to violence has left him with a fatalistic attitude because there is really nothing anybody can do in Beirut to be safe. Prosser's relationships with his sources are impersonal. His relationships with women are no better. Ultimately, he has no purpose except to survive and do his job, and the women in his life invariably become involved in some way with his work. As many details of this conflict continue to reverberate today, this intelligently written novel provides a compelling page-turner and a memorable story. PRODUCT DESCRIPTION Beirut, 1982. Conrad Prosser is a skilled Arabist, expert agent handler, prolific intelligence reporter, and a connoisseur of Beirut's underground nightlife. But, as his two-year tour at the U.S. Embassy nears its end, Prosser's intelligence career is in jeopardy because he has not recruited an agent while in Lebanon, a sine qua non requirement for promotion. Surveying his many contacts, Prosser selects an attractive Lebanese doctoral student and her idealistic brother as candidates for development. At the same time, he holds clandestine meetings by day and night with his string of Lebanese and Palestinian agents, pressing them to discover who is behind the latest wave of car bombings that has terrorized Muslim West Beirut. But when one of his agents supplies information used to capture a Syrian-backed bombing team, Prosser sets off a cycle of retaliation that threatens more than his career and cherished way of life. At first denying, then later concealing, apparent attempts on his life, Prosser sets out to save both his job and his skin, exploiting his agents, his best friend, a former lover, his new girlfriend and her enigmatic brother. In doing so, he puts their lives at risk and discovers too late the effect of his heedless actions. DYNAMITE FISHERMEN offers complex characters, fast-paced action, a vivid portrayal of human intelligence operations and the flavor of Beirut during its dark days of ciReview"Conrad Prosser, immersed in the civil disorder of early-'80s Beirut, employs whatever means are necessary to expose the organization behind a series of car bombings. The possibility of bloodshed at any moment keeps the story at an elevated level of suspense. Even the more languid moments move with a searing undertone. Uncertainty among the characters, coupled with relentless gunfire and explosions, make for an extraordinary novel, each page as eruptive as the city providing the setting." KIRKUS REVIEWS "Dynamite Fishermen is an absolute stunner of a novel. It's clear Fleming has done his research and it shows in the seamless dialogue and the ease at which he tackles the task of conveying the wartime ambiance. This is a must-read for history buffs - although I feel strongly everyone will enjoy the rapid pace and captivating suspense. Fleming is a writer deserving of many accolades." SAN FRANCISCO BOOK REVIEW "In Dynamite Fishermen, Preston Fleming depicts heedless violence as a way of life from the perspective of an American intelligence officer. The story falls during a lull in the long running Lebanese civil war, a period plagued by daily car bombings, civilian shootings, artillery attacks and other mayhem. As many details of this conflict continue to reverberate today, this intelligently written novel provides a compelling page-turner and a memorable story." PACIFIC BOOK REVIEW "An intelligence officer who has dodged making decisions and cleaning up his messes is forced to face the consequences, showing resourcefulness and decency...at last when he must. Fleming does know how to spin a yarn... his fiction has more verisimilitude than many others in the genre." BOOKPLEASURES.COMFrom the AuthorI wrote Dynamite Fishermen and Bride of a Bygone War to clear my head after eleven years of government service in places like Beirut, Cairo, Tunis, Jeddah, and Amman. I had already decided to write novels at age fourteen, during my first year as a boarding student at Exeter. My English instructor, a World War II combat veteran, advised those of us who wanted to follow the path of Melville, Conrad and Hemingway to first go out and live some adventures so that we would have stories that people might want to read. My adventures started in the Middle East and continued in Washington, Europe, the Russian Far East, Maui, Utah, New York and Boston. Though my most recent novels are set far from Beirut in a future dystopian America, I intend to write more stories set in the Middle East before long.
Read online