Field of Thunder is a timely thriller, the threat of biological warfare in the Middle East serving as its central theme. Author Rose Flem-Ath has taken on a complex story that opens with secret British nuclear tests in Australia and closes with a fiery battle scene in the Jordanian desert. Flem-Ath manages to connect cancer-ridden test survivors with Palestinian terrorism and the Gulf War against Iraq.

As the story unfolds across five continents, the plot moves along at a good clip. But Flem-Ath’s characters conform to dated stereotypes. The central player, August Riley, is a cynical, albeit sentimental CIA agent. Riley’s target is the evil scientist Ahmed Maher who wants to unite the Arab world by unleashing biological warfare on American troops assembled against Iraq. Maher is aided by an angry Australian veteran, the survivor of secret British nuclear experiments conducted in the 1950s and 60s.

The stereotypes prove to be Flem-Ath’s undoing. She’s done some research, but not enough. The Arab characters (all part of one family) are variously described as Jordanian, Palestinian, and Bedouin. Some subsist as dirt-poor refugees, some as well-educated expatriates living in the West, while others are fabulously wealthy. The mad scientist’s motivation for the threat of biological warfare is either to unite the Arab “brotherhood” or fulfilment of “the Cause.” The latter is left undefined but somehow combines the dream of a Palestinian homeland with an Arab defeat of the West.

There are also references to the “Sword of Islam”– hardly the slogan used by an ally of Saddam Hussein. He may be Muslim but religious extremists have never sought refuge in Hussein’s Iraq. If Hussein has served to unite Arab countries it is in opposition to him. The Gulf War proved that.