She is writing a second book called "The Zionist Betrayal?" Lest readers miss the point, Ferrigno writes, "that question mark had made all the difference."
Needless to say, a lot of people wish Dougan would shut up. The US' conversion was neatly expedited by both civil war and by public pronouncements from Hollywood, where converting to Islam became all the rage. (The book's denouement manages to feature the Academy Awards.) But Dougan has a conspiracy theory and she is out to prove it. That angle, plus the wild-card status of China in Ferrigno's imaginary geopolitics, ought to give Prayers for the Assassin a vigorous plot, but the book still manages to move slowly. It screeches to a halt whenever Dougan and Epps take a lovebird break.
The story's momentum is not helped when the same hollow threats are repeated over and over. A sinister powermonger known as the Old One sits in his lavish 90th-story Las Vegas apartment, scheming predictable schemes. Redbeard, the noble and powerful security chief who raised both Dougan and Epps, continues to voice the same worries about their welfare. Darwin smirks and taunts in lively fashion. ("Well, look at you. Aren't you the tenacious lawman.") But even he overstays his welcome. The book's wild stabs at novelty yield a scene of bleak depravity. Formerly known as "the happiest place on earth," Disney-land is now full of so-called rent-wives, whose services can be engaged very briefly, then terminated by improvised Muslim divorce.
Prayers for the Assassin weakens its ingenuity with cliched thriller touches. Still, it has enough novelty to attract attention and enough substance to be genuinely frightening. "The nuclear attack merely toppled a rotten tree," the Old One intones.
Ferrigno propounds the rotten-tree theory and also appreciates Islam's power to persuade. "Muslims were the only people with a clear plan and a helping hand," one character explains, "and everyone was equal in the eyes of Allah. That's what they said, anyway."
A note on product placement: in the Islamic Republic, the sanctioned drink is Jihad Cola. Nobody likes it. And Coca-Cola has become much-coveted contra-band. "Who could imagine something this good would be illegal?" Epps wonders. Somebody in advertising could imagine it more easily than somebody truly interested in the future.
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