The Sand Cafe

by Macfarquhar, Neil

• ISBN13: 9781586483685
• ISBN10: 1586483684
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-03-28
• Publisher: Public Affairs

Summary

"Dhahran Palace Hotel, Saudi Arabia, 1991. As U.S. forces mass on the border with Iraq, preparing to throw Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, more than 1,000 foreign correspondents and other media species are jockeying for space in the hotel's 190 rooms. Helicopters and armor are churning across the desert sand, there are rumors of Scud missiles and talk of chemical attacks, but, in fact, nothing is really happening. With no story to report, the press is getting restive. Not even the stranger aspects of Saudi Arabia keep them distracted for long." "Angus Dalziel, an up-and-coming war reporter for the World Press wire service, finds his attention divided between dull military briefings utterly lacking in news and the figure of Thea Makdisi, a smoldering, spirited cable news reporter. She is sassy while he is buttoned-down; she is exotic while he is studious; she is TV while he is print. Worse, she arouses attention anywhere she goes, stirring up everyone from sex-starved navy pilots to rival television producers. Angus faces the oldest dilemma of any reporter - should he chase the story or the girl?" "Like all the foreign correspondents - scurrying endlessly in pursuit of a really big story, festering with jealousy at other reporters getting better military access or bigger budgets - Angus lives surrounded by the smell of damp rot that comes from a combination of leaking air-conditioning and wretched hotel carpeting. The romance of war reporting - such as it is - exists far from the Dhahran Palace Hotel and its bedraggled swarm of reporters."--BOOK JACKET.