Meeting the Lion of BabylonAs book reviewer for Benthany house, I chose Davis Bunn’s 378 pages-book tteild Lion of Babylon that was an action-packed book book I loved the reading. Firstly, Bunn’s description of Iraq’s present-day political struggle among several political parties based on clans and religious affiliations is quite realistic while foreign countries (United States and Iran) tried to influence Iraq’s internal politics. Then, with the undercover agent named Marc Royce sent in Iraq to rescue his missing best friend and three hostages, he has to deal with Iraq’s insecurity filled with terrorist bombing from religious fanatics and others commissioned by foreign powers. However, he will find out an expected ally in a Christian lawyer named Sameh El-Jacobi, and though very suspicious about him for his real intentions during their first meetings, the Sameh will turn into his loyal admirer. Though Bunn’s fifty-one chapters’ book can appear unreasonable, but each chapter provides the effect that want to read more about the events occurring in the book, so you do not stop of turning the pages by reading.From these facts, The Lion of Babylon is must-read book for common readers, but highly recommended to several politicians in order to know better Iraq. Despite The Lion of Bagdad is a fiction work, Bunn succeeds to provide a realistic present-day Iraq living filled with lack of national unity, terrorist attacks and daily insecurity living such as kidnappings. It was a modern and post-saddam Hussein Iraq occupied by American forces since the last Gulf War for wrong reasons while other foreign nations worked with different agendas to determine Iraq’s fate far for democratic ideals. Lastly, through his writing, Bunn described the present-day Iraq about the tragedy of a people while it provided information about Arabic History and customs for meeting and greeting friends, showing off with doubt his knowledge about Arab civilization. Consequently, without hesitation, I highly recommend anyone Bunn’s Lion of Baghdad as that book deserve to be turned into an action-thriller movie.
