Personal Justice by Ramlee Awang Murshid

When Hilman met his daughter Jeslina in New York, after years of separation, they were both happy beyond compare. However, their happiness were short-lived when they were involved in road accident.

Jeslina went into coma while Hilman was accused of drunk driving. In that chaotic situation, Mia Sara, an officer from Malaysian Embassy in Washington D.C, appeared. With her help, Hilman was advised to appear in court.

But, when Hilman found out about a conspiracy to hide the real cause of accident, he decided to seek justice on his own.

As a sharpshooter in the Malaysian Royal Police, survival was his playground. His investigation on the conspiracy, finally, led him to the White House!

And, Hilman was never in awe standing before its door...

I like all Michael Crichton fictions

I still reading Rising Sun by Michael Crichton by the time this entry published. I’ve been the follower of all Michael Crichton’s fictions and enjoy every single of it. Then I realize that this novel has been filmed, sometimes in 1993. I’ll try to look for the film, if still available.

I already read Timeline, The Terminal Man, State of Fear and Andromeda Strain.

Synopsis from publisher

During the grand opening celebration of the new American headquarters of an immense Japanese conglomerate, the dead body of a beautiful woman is found. The investigation begins, and immediately becomes a headlong chase through a twisting maze of industrial intrigue and a violent business battle that takes no prisoners.

Comment by Publishers Weekly

A young American model is murdered in the corporate boardroom of Los Angeles's Nakomoto Tower on the new skyscraper's gala opening night. Murdered, that is, unless she was strangled while enjoying sadomasochistic sex that went too far.

Nakomoto, a Japanese electronics giant, tries to hush up the embarrassing incident, setting in motion a murder investigation that serves Crichton ( Jurassic Park ) as the platform for a clever, tough-talking harangue on the dangers of Japanese economic competition and influence-peddling in the U.S.

Divorced LAPD lieutenant Peter Smith, who has custody of his two-year-old daughter, and hard-boiled detective John Connor, who says things like ``For a Japanese, consistent behavior is not possible,'' pursue the killer in a winding plot involving Japan's attempt to gain control of the U.S. computer industry.

Although Crichton's didactic aims are often at cross-purposes with his storytelling, his entertaining, well-researched thriller cannot be easily dismissed as Japan-bashing because it raises important questions about that country's adversarial trade strategy and our inadequate response to it. He also provides a fascinating perspective on how he thinks the Japanese view Americans--as illiterate, childish, lazy people obsessed with TV, violence and aggressive litigation.

English novels from Alaf21

Alaf 21 Sdn Bhd, a Malay publisher, is moving forward by publishing English fictions. The company has new line up for English novels, namely Jasmines on the 4^th Floor, Far Away and After the Rain. Prior to this, they already published Norzailina Nordin’s novel, Zuriat, to English version titled Genetics Peril.

For the info, several years ago, Alaf 21 has taken a bold and brave move to publish English fiction books for children. At that time the publisher has three titles in the market; House on Bukit Kenanga, House Of Horror and Mystery Of The Old Mansion all by Zamir Zakwan.

The latest is Personal Justice, an English version of A.D.A.M by the famous local thriller author, Ramlee Awang Murshid.

I personally congratulate both the publisher and author for a very good and rare initiative from local Malay publishing industry. I can’t wait to read all the books, albeit my busy schedule with catering.

There’s something about Aishah that Jones don’t understand

A debate is still going on for The Jewel of Medina.

"I just hope that it is not marketed as an "extensively researched" historical novel about the Lady Aishah, because whatever research Jones did, she certainly does not appear to have used it or benefitted from it. The Jewel of Medina is fiction in the purest sense of the term, with little or nothing of history in it.

I also hope that readers will take it for what it is: an attempt by a Western writer with little knowledge of Arabic, Arabia, Islam, and Muslims using her own Western, 21st century values, ideals and emotions to portray an unrecognizable version of the well-known and well-documented story of Aishah.

If Jones had set out to tell the "untold" or an "alternative" story of the heroism and courage of Aishah, she could have saved herself the trouble. The Lady Aishah has already been seen as a heroine and revered as a role model by Muslim women since the beginning of Muslim history." (Marwa Elnaggar, a writer, a poet, and a consultant to ReadingIslam.com)

Jones is wrong about Aishah, as stated by Marwa Elnagger:

“There's something not quite right about seeing a citation for One Thousand and One Nights in a bibliography for a novel about the Lady Aishah, Prophet Muhammad's famous wife.

What it says about an author who would, in writing about the early Muslim community, use the collection of stories that has given us Aladdin, Ali Baba (he of the forty thieves), Sinbad the sailor, and the wife-killing yet story-loving king, Shahrayar, is a lot that makes any discerning reader uncomfortable.” Full article here.

Sci-Fi and fantasy from Neal Stephenson

The first Neal Stephenson’s novel I read is cryptonomicon, followed by the Zodiac. Both are good and interesting. I have few others from him, but all are in to-read category. The latest from him is Anathem. I will get it, soon.

Neal Stephenson stands firmly in the ranks of the greatest science-fiction writers, but his career continues to defy that easy label. The distant realms in his books range from the far future to the distant past, but many of the themes he presents are common to all his books.

In Stephenson's world, information is power, and individuals with enough brains, foresight and firepower to use it can ride its transformational might like a surfer on a wave. Of course, they can also get smashed in the surf or dragged back to sea by contrary, restraining forces.

Stephenson's newest novel, Anathem, is no exception to this worldview. The book's cast—a mix of monks, mechanics, spacemen and theologian politicians­—holds its own in the canon of Stephenson's works.

From the publisher

Fraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the outside "saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe, becoming out of necessity even more austere and less dependent on technology and material things. And Erasmas has no fear of the outside—the Extramuros—for the last of the terrible times was long, long ago.

Now, in celebration of the week-long, once-in-a-decade rite of Apert, the fraas and suurs prepare to venture beyond the concent's gates—at the same time opening them wide to welcome the curious "extras" in. During his first Apert as a fraa, Erasmas eagerly anticipates reconnecting with the landmarks and family he hasn't seen since he was "collected." But before the week is out, both the existence he abandoned and the one he embraced will stand poised on the brink of cataclysmic change.

Powerful unforeseen forces jeopardize the peaceful stability of mathic life and the established ennui of the Extramuros—a threat that only an unsteady alliance of saecular and avout can oppose—as, one by one, Erasmas and his colleagues, teachers, and friends are summoned forth from the safety of the concent in hopes of warding off global disaster. Suddenly burdened with a staggering responsibility, Erasmas finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his world—as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet . . . and beyond.