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Overview
a suspense-thriller-adventure-historical fiction epic. In 245 pages, the author of Gardens of Grief does what it took Leon Uris 600 plus pages to do in Exodus. The latter dealt only peripherally with the Jewish holocaust. Boston Teran deals more directly with the Armenian one.
Turkish readers and the Turkish government can tune out now if they like, but butchers of the Ottoman Empire not only killed millions of Armenians, they probably encouraged Hitler and his Nazi murderers to do the same to the Jews. The Turks dodged the bullet of public opinion, a fact not overlooked by the Nazi establishment. It certainly prompted them to believe that the rest of the world wouldn’t care what they did to the Jews. They were right—much of the official Western World didn’t care until U.S. troops and others started reporting what they found in the Nazi concentration camps.
The Turks have an open wound of guilt with respect to their “Armenian solution.” They have even leveraged their position in NATO to keep the U.S. government from using the words genocide, holocaust, and ethnic cleansing when describing their “Armenian solution.” Use whatever words you want, but no amount of ostrich behavior or positive spin can change what really happened. It was obscene, organized murder, a mob lynching on the scale of millions.
This is the background for Boston Teran’s book. Like Exodus and other thrillers (Forsyth’s work comes to mind), the historical facts seem to meld seamlessly into the story. You don’t know where the history ends and the fiction begins. This book is easier to read and it is more profound. We see the holocaust up close and personal through the eyes of the main characters. It is not a pretty sight.
The hero is John Lourdes, the same one from the author’s Creed of Violence. That makes this book a sequel. (The blurb on the back cover says it’s less of a sequel than an organic evolvement—whatever that means. To me “sequel” has a more expansive definition, but words are like symbols in an equation—they can mean anything, especially in today’s literature.) John is Mexican-American. Much is made in the book that he is swarthy so he can pass himself off as Armenian. I don’t remember my Armenian friends as swarthy, but maybe I was just colorblind when I grew up. Also, as a Spanish speaker, I don’t particularly think of John Lourdes as being a Mexican-American name (this might be explained in Creed, which I have not read), but maybe they’ll change that in the movie (Universal has purchased film rights to both Creed and Gardens).
Lourdes is a spy. I don’t believe that word was once used to describe him, but there is no doubt that he would be at home in the CIA. Moreover, this spy story, like Creed, is about oil. Where Creed was about America’s intervention into the Mexican Revolution in 1910 for the sake of oil, Gardens is about the control of the Baku oil fields. My conclusion at the end is that the U.S. ignored the holocaust that was going on and left Lourdes and company to die due to the U.S. interest in that oil. Black gold has more of a Midas attraction than
Turkish readers and the Turkish government can tune out now if they like, but butchers of the Ottoman Empire not only killed millions of Armenians, they probably encouraged Hitler and his Nazi murderers to do the same to the Jews. The Turks dodged the bullet of public opinion, a fact not overlooked by the Nazi establishment. It certainly prompted them to believe that the rest of the world wouldn’t care what they did to the Jews. They were right—much of the official Western World didn’t care until U.S. troops and others started reporting what they found in the Nazi concentration camps.
The Turks have an open wound of guilt with respect to their “Armenian solution.” They have even leveraged their position in NATO to keep the U.S. government from using the words genocide, holocaust, and ethnic cleansing when describing their “Armenian solution.” Use whatever words you want, but no amount of ostrich behavior or positive spin can change what really happened. It was obscene, organized murder, a mob lynching on the scale of millions.
This is the background for Boston Teran’s book. Like Exodus and other thrillers (Forsyth’s work comes to mind), the historical facts seem to meld seamlessly into the story. You don’t know where the history ends and the fiction begins. This book is easier to read and it is more profound. We see the holocaust up close and personal through the eyes of the main characters. It is not a pretty sight.
The hero is John Lourdes, the same one from the author’s Creed of Violence. That makes this book a sequel. (The blurb on the back cover says it’s less of a sequel than an organic evolvement—whatever that means. To me “sequel” has a more expansive definition, but words are like symbols in an equation—they can mean anything, especially in today’s literature.) John is Mexican-American. Much is made in the book that he is swarthy so he can pass himself off as Armenian. I don’t remember my Armenian friends as swarthy, but maybe I was just colorblind when I grew up. Also, as a Spanish speaker, I don’t particularly think of John Lourdes as being a Mexican-American name (this might be explained in Creed, which I have not read), but maybe they’ll change that in the movie (Universal has purchased film rights to both Creed and Gardens).
Lourdes is a spy. I don’t believe that word was once used to describe him, but there is no doubt that he would be at home in the CIA. Moreover, this spy story, like Creed, is about oil. Where Creed was about America’s intervention into the Mexican Revolution in 1910 for the sake of oil, Gardens is about the control of the Baku oil fields. My conclusion at the end is that the U.S. ignored the holocaust that was going on and left Lourdes and company to die due to the U.S. interest in that oil. Black gold has more of a Midas attraction than
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781567030525 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | High-Top Publishing LLC |
| Publication date: | 12/09/2010 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 246 |
| File size: | 142 KB |
About the Author
No one knows the identity of Boston Teran. Some say that he is a well-known writer using a pseu-donym. Others say Boston Teran is the name used by a small group of writers working together to create one identity. Either way, God Is a Bullet, which has been described as “Raymond Chandler on speed,” is currently being adapted for film by writer/producer Ehren Kruger (Reindeer Games, Blood and Chocolate, The Ring). And his soon-to-be published fifth book, The Creed of Violence, was just bought by Universal for the second highest price ever paid for a manuscript, and Todd Field, whose recent writing efforts were Little Children and In the Bedroom, has been hired to adapt The Creed of Violence.
Here is a list of Boston Teran’s awards:
Winner of the 1999 BOMC Stephen Crane Literary First Fiction Award
Finalist for the 1999 Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel
Winner of the 2000 CWA John Creasey Award for Best First Novel
Nominee for the 2001 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
Winner of the 2002 Fiction Lovers Association of Japan Fiction
Novel of the Year Award Winner of the 2002 Fiction Lovers
GRAND PRIX CALIBRE 38 (Meilleur roman policier) 2004
Association of Japan Crime Novel of the Year Award
Other books by Boston Teran:
GOD IS A BULLET—Knopf —1999
NEVER COUNT OUT THE DEAD—St. Martins—2001
THE PRINCE OF DEADLY WEAPONS—St. Martins—2002
TROIS FEMMES—Le Masque—2004
THE CREED OF VIOLENCE—Counterpoint—2009
For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact Jocelyn Kelley at
617-680-1976 or email .
Here is a list of Boston Teran’s awards:
Winner of the 1999 BOMC Stephen Crane Literary First Fiction Award
Finalist for the 1999 Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel
Winner of the 2000 CWA John Creasey Award for Best First Novel
Nominee for the 2001 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
Winner of the 2002 Fiction Lovers Association of Japan Fiction
Novel of the Year Award Winner of the 2002 Fiction Lovers
GRAND PRIX CALIBRE 38 (Meilleur roman policier) 2004
Association of Japan Crime Novel of the Year Award
Other books by Boston Teran:
GOD IS A BULLET—Knopf —1999
NEVER COUNT OUT THE DEAD—St. Martins—2001
THE PRINCE OF DEADLY WEAPONS—St. Martins—2002
TROIS FEMMES—Le Masque—2004
THE CREED OF VIOLENCE—Counterpoint—2009
For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact Jocelyn Kelley at
617-680-1976 or email .
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