Are you looking for a summer reading suggestion? You might expect me to recommend a non-fiction book since that’s what I write, but I suggest a recently released novel that is both gripping and highly informative. You can learn from novels as well as be entertained. That was true about Fyodor Dostoevsky whose description of the human psyche in The Brothers Karamazov was as profound (or more so) than Freud. His psychological principles about reward and punishment have been replicated by hundreds of experiments a hundred years after Dostoevsky wrote his classic novels. And if you like fast-paced but accurate legal details that make John Grisham’s novels so believable, you will relish just-released Chinese Conspiracy by John Mariotti.
Chinese Conspiracy is fiction, but fact-based as well as fascinating. As a rule, absorbing novels also have a few romantic episodes, and yes, this novel follows that rule. While reading this intriguing and riveting saga, you gain fascinating insights into at least three cultures: China (along with Iran and Pakistan), Rural America (specifically West Virginia), and U.S. government agencies (CIA, FBI, DHS and other D.C. bureaucracies).
Will the quest between China and the U.S. for world dominance be won with nuclear bombs and missiles, naval power, economics or some other form of global war fare? Hint: Be prepared to expand your knowledge about techie topics ranging from AI and computer networks to worms and viruses. This is a new version of an earlier book, so if you order it on Amazon or other places, be sure it is the 2024 edition of Chinese Conspiracy. You can see the book trailer on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ka2d3HclnYE.
Warning! When reading Chinese Conspiracy, you may have to stop and ask, “Am I reading fiction or headlines from tomorrow’s news?”
