The Empty Quarter

I listened to the audio version of this book. While it dragged for me in a few spots, I came away thoroughly impressed. To me, there were no false notes–the military aspects of the story sounded credible and detailed; the Saudi and Yemeni aspects of the story likewise seemed completely plausible. The diplomat in the novel maybe didn't ring completely true, but that was forgivable. It's an exciting, fast-paced story that will keep you reading.

While brilliantly written, the story was far from gripping. I had to intentionally finish it, and even then the ending was predictable. It took literally the entire first half of the book to finish setting up characters and get to the action, and then the action was over exactly the way I expected it to be. I will say that the writing was fantastic and I really was able to visualize the scenes because they were described so well. Even so, the book left me disappointed.