Ben East Books

Tag: Diplomacy

  • Avery Dick Disappoints

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    Ben East
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    I had high hopes for the Avery Dick series. Diplomatic Security (DS) Agents have some of the most colorful stories in the Foreign Service trade. They walk like cops. They talk like cops. They’re security professionals steeped the gritty detail of protective service. Their beat is peculiar: sniff out bombs and throw up barricades; investigate…

  • Not Graham Greene

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    Ben East
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    Amazon asked me if my novel, Two Pumps for the Body Man, met my expectations. “Well, the author’s no Graham Greene,” I say. “Please send me some of that.” Why should I (or anyone) read a story about a foot-fetishist diplomat doing time in Saudi Arabia when I (or anyone) could be reading about a vacuum cleaner salesman making bank in Cuba? But then…

  • Cover Story

    Cover Story

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    Ben East
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    To my colleagues in the foreign affairs community, known and unknown, I regret that the artwork of my novel about your service has misrepresented the truth. “BOO-ring,” LousyBookCoversDotCom hooted. “Showing you just how dramatic diplomacy can be.” What an insult my cover must seem to those of us who serve our country. What an insult to those who’ve worked in…

  • A Wry Ode to Clusterf***ing

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    Ben East
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    Joyless House posted this generous review of Two Pumps for the Body Man. See what else they’re reviewing with a click on the image. “…Two Pumps is a page-turner, baby, and it takes some real balls to satirize the great Christian crusade of our times.” Two Pumps is set in the Royal Kingdom of Saudi…

  • Diplomatic Security

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    Ben East
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    This trailer from the film America’s Diplomats shows how our diplomatic security personnel train for the worst case scenario—from protests and threats to bombings and outright assaults on our missions overseas. Their storied bureau turned 100 this year. Learn more about the daily grind of our DS personnel in Two Pumps for the Body Man,…

  • A Catch-22 for Diplomacy

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    Ben East
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    Two Pumps for the Body Man Set in Saudi Arabia, Two Pumps does for American diplomacy and the War on Terror what Catch-22 did for military logic during the Second World War: The enemy can’t kill us if our institutions kill us first. Jeff Mutton walks the diplomatic beat protecting American officials in Saudi Arabia.…

  • Coming Very Soon

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    Ben East
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    The Second World War II had Catch 22. The Global War on Terror will have:

  • Foreign Service Writers

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    Ben East
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    The March issue of the Foreign Service Journal covers the annual book fair and includes a call for FS-affiliated writers to submit news of forthcoming and recently published books for the November round up. Authors are also invited to submit work for review on this blog: I recently reviewed retired FSO James F. O’Callaghan’s No Circuses. See below. From the FSJ…

  • Review: Foreign Service Fiction

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    Ben East
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    Anyone who thinks diplomacy is about choosing the right fork at the right time should think again and read James O’Callaghan’s clever satire No Circuses (Tacchino Press, 2015). Forget preconceived notions of dinner-party diplomacy: keeping one’s elbows off the table, tangoing the rival into submission, and writing it up the next day in communiqués to DC. What diplomacy’s really about, in O’Callaghan’s world,…

  • Dundee International Book Prize

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    Ben East
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    Two weeks until the February 15th deadline for submitting your manuscript to this year’s Dundee International Book Prize. Curious about what floats their boat? Read last year’s shortlisted works: My manuscript Sea Never Dry, thick with crooked cops, fetish priests, Internet fraudsters, and orphans turning a buck off a West African e-waste dump, made last year’s cut. Read the excerpt below. Now,…