With all its intricacy and deceit, Turkish politics reads like a page turner. It was about time someone created a skillful and intelligent page turner using Turkey and its politics as the base. Luke Montgomery has done exactly that.
Montgomery’s well-researched book draws from the incredible but real affairs in Turkey: The quiet suffering of the Turkish people during the last 10 years from the Orwellian policies of an Islamic regime during which journalists are jailed for criticizing the government, the right to free speech is stifled by intimidating the public and where the government is the Big Brother who monitors private conversations and limits web access- all while the Western World has declared the ruling Islamic party an example of a new and convenient concept they coined “Moderate Islam”. Meanwhile, the Turkish government has eliminated the internal checks and balances that are supposed to keep it under control in order to reign without consequences: The fictitious “Balyoz” case eliminated the opposing Military echelon while another manufactured plot called “Ergenekon” implicated intellectuals critical of the regime.
Meanwhile, the common Turk is aware of Imam Gulen who lives in PA, USA who owns Turkish media channels, whose network infiltrated bureaucracy. Gulen operates hundreds of schools globally, including in the US via his organization and network.
“A Deceit to Die For” takes place in the UK, the USA, Egypt and Turkey. A collection of letters and books acquired by Professor O’Brien contain a document someone wants to keep a secret at whatever expense. His family in the US find themselves against an international organization who is trying to bury the secret forever. The story breathlessly unfolds an international mystique. The framework is meticulously researched and the reader is treated to real slices of life from modern Istanbul, the dynamics between government institutions and social classes. It has realistic snapshots of suicide bombers, Hizbullah terrorists, government sympathizers with veiled wives.
If you are in Turkey, do not bother looking for the author’s web site www.lukemontgomery.net which is censored. Try Amazon instead.
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