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Seymour Grufferman MD The Bag Boys Jihad 2018 Edition by Seymour Grufferman
"I, for the life of me, cannot understand why the terrorists have not attackedour food supply, because it is so easy to do."--Tommy Thompson, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, December 7, 2004Just before he was killed, Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, meet with alQaeda's Shura Council in an abandoned house in Pakistan. They discuss plans for a new holywar, a large-scale bioterrorism attack on the US. For this war, they will partner with their formerenemy, the Iranians. The plan includes collecting samples containing infectious agents such ascholera germs from patients seen in hospital emergency rooms in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Thesamples are then sent to a makeshift laboratory in North Waziristan where the pathogens arepropagated and packaged for shipment to the US. Meanwhile in the US, a network of American-bornradicalized teen-agers is recruited and deployed as bag boys in supermarkets.When Winston Sage, M.D., an offbeat, retired epidemiologist living in Santa Fe, was invited toserve on a boondoggle State Committee on Bioterrorism, the last thing he could have imaginedwas that he would unravel al Qaeda's planned strike on the US; be enlisted by the FBI; and bepersonally commended by the President at the White House. Sage's unorthodox thinking clasheswith the FBI, but ultimately helps abort the attacks--well, almost.Praise for The Bag Boys' Jihad: "As in Grufferman's (The Warring States Conundrum, 2017) preceding novel, Win is a likableprotagonist. He has strong opinions but is open to others' suggestions; consequently, peoplelisten to him, even if his early declaration of an epidemic sounds far-fetched. The author astutelyshows the intricacies of the terrorists' plan, especially the multitude of participants. Some aredevout while others are horrified upon realizing the leaders consider certain individualsexpendable. Intelligent dialogue makes discussions about various strains of disease perfectlycomprehensible, aided by a steady momentum via brief chapters. Humor comes primarily fromWin's wife, Julia, whose sardonic comments are endearing. Once Win is entangled in thepotential terrorist plot, she simply says: 'I told you not to get involved with this dumb project.'An absorbing jihadist thriller bolstered by complex villains and a winsome, levelheadedprotagonist."--Kirkus Reviews