Guests of the Ayatollah

Mark Bowden is the bestselling author of Killing Pablo, Finders Keepers and Black Hawk Down, which was made into a successful film by Ridley Scott. He is a national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly.

Bowden bills the 1979-1980 Iranian hostage crisis as the opening salvo of the Islamic jihad against the U.S. For well over a year Americans were riveted--and helpless--as 52 diplomats, members of the military, and those there by accident were kept in various places in Tehran before finally being released after Ronald Reagan's inauguration. The author may be a nonprofessional narrator, but he knows how to invest a narrative with excitement and how to inject conversations with drama. Some hostages accepted their fate stoically, some vented anger on their captors, some became friendly with guards; Bowden communicates these responses well. Ten hours is a lengthy abridgment, so listeners get plenty of detail. J.B.G. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine