No Shadows in the Desert

Murder, Espionage, Vengeance, and the Untold Story of the Destruction of ISIS

By: Samuel M. Katz

Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins

The inside story of the covert operation that took down the heads of ISIS

No Shadows in the Desert reveals the untold story of the behind-the-scenes fight against ISIS—one coordinated by heads of state and ultimately fought in the alleyways and open deserts of the Middle Eastern battlefield by spies and soldiers. Samuel M. Katz draws upon his sources within the global intelligence and counterterrorism community, as well as the international special operations and espionage fraternity, to tell the story of the covert campaign against ISIS by the operatives who ventured deeply and secretly into enemy territory.

In this first-ever look at the secret inner workings of an Arab secret service, Katz tells the story of Jordan’s GID, the masters of human intelligence on the espionage battlefields of the Middle East, who proved pivotal and crucial go-to allies of the CIA and America’s other intelligence agencies in the war against ISIS and the war on terror. With the revealing and intimate insight of the intelligence officers who fought ISIS, No Shadows in the Desert is a rare glimpse into how a strategic partnership helped change how terrorism is fought in the Middle East and beyond.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Katz Exceeds Expectations

Great read and insight in to the Jordanian GID and good reminder that good always triumphs over evil.

Samuel Katz has written a master of a work.

Samuel Katz has written a master of a work describing the Jordanian Intelligence agencies.
Amazing!

Bit of a long puff piece.

Pronounciation of some words very off. KAY la FATE? Repetitive points in text seemed like filler. How many times to hear about coffee, tea and Arab sweets.

The egregious mispronunciations

Narrator pronounces Qatar as “cutter” and CSAR as “Caesar.” It needs to be stressed that military stories should require narrators who are familiar with the proper pronunciation of military terms and typical locales of operations.

Unique Topic-But Glamorizing Terrorism/Counter Intelligence

I picked this book up because the premise seemed really interesting, but the author is kind of a goof. You know those true crime podcasts that have those irritating hosts who just glorify crimes, and the parties involved to the point where real murder cases are made out to be like a soap opera? Yeah that’s the vibe I get with this author and his descriptions of Middle East terrorism and the accompanying actors, not a fan. This is by no means a “poorly” written piece per se, nor is it terrible, I just don’t like the presentation of real world conflicts to come off like a Tom Clancy fan-fiction. Gotta give him credit for at least writing about a rarely mentioned literary topic though.