Peter King’s 2004 Thriller Previews Terrorist Fears

[cal04]

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/peter-kings-2004-thriller-previews-terrorist-fears/

As Representative Peter King prepares to start hearings tomorrow on Muslim extremism in the United States, our colleague Noam Cohen has a post on City Room about the New York congressman’s 2004 novel “Vale of Tears.” In the thriller a congressman who must stop a planned “dirty bomb” attack by Qaeda operatives working in Brooklyn and Long Island. Hmmm…. Read more.


When Peter King, Er, Sean Cross, Saved the Day
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/when-peter-king-er-sean-cross-saved-the-day/

“I wish I were James Bond, but I’m just a messenger,” says Sean Cross, the hero of “Vale of Tears,” Representative Peter T. King’s barely veiled 2004 thriller about a congressman who must thwart a planned “dirty bomb” attack by Qaeda operatives working in Brooklyn and on Long Island.

Even before the plot of the novel unfolds, it is a tense time for Congressman Cross, Mr. King’s alter ego. He has been assigned a police escort “ever since he had begun receiving vague phone and mail threats from self-proclaimed Islamic terrorists.” Then a series of explosions rock Long Island and Brooklyn, and Congressman Cross is forced to help “connect the dots” to prevent an even bigger attack.

As Mr. King takes the spotlight this week with his hearings on the radicalization of American Muslims, “Vale of Tears” shows he has long been considering the dangers posed by radical Muslims, as well as what role a mere congressman can play in protecting his country.

And in a wrinkle that anticipates many of the questions that he is facing about his past support for the Irish Republican Army, his thriller directly engages that connection: the scheme being exposed by Congressman Cross involves rogue elements of the I.R.A. assisting Qaeda operatives — an alliance sealed by Fiona Larkin, a striking redhead who once seemed committed to the I.R.A.’s peaceful transition to electoral politics, and Abdul Bajal, a Qaeda leader living in Dublin.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/when-peter-king-er-sean-cross-saved-the-day/