Five Minutes to Midnight

by Sabi H. Shabtai

Originally published in 1980, FIVE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT remains of great interest as a prophetic and frightening predictive vision of the threat of nuclear terrorism. As American Independence Day approaches, many millions are planning a celebratory holiday while one radical, Carlos the Jackal, leader of the dreaded Terror International, planner of the Entebbe highjacking and the massacre at the Munich Olympics, has plans to raise the level of terror to new heights while bringing the threat home to the U.S. with a stolen nuclear weapon. Standing in his way is Sam Sartain, a member of an elite counterintelligence team, who has long pursued Carlos and has learned to analyze the twisted mind and plans of a mass killer. As he follows a series of deadly leads that range from the University campus in Berkeley, California to a prison in Berlin, he must race against time to prevent a colossal act of destructive madness in Washington, DC itself.

Genres: Thriller, Fiction

430 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Sabi H. Shabtai has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago and has taught at various universities over the years. For three years he was a Fellow of the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs in Chicago, specializing in problems of violence and international terrorism. HE has worked for the Israeli government in different capacities and served as a consultant and lecturer on terrorism to various organizations, including airlines, police organizations and the U.S. Army. "Five Minutes To Midnight" is his only novel.

Reviews

[Angela Gill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book in November 1981 so this must be a re-release. Story of international terrorism: terrorists with access to nuclear weapons. Talks of Entebbe. "To deal with terrorists, one must learn to think like terrorists!" --- a quote from the book.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written spy/terrorism novel. Hard to put down. I looked to see if the author had written other books, but couldn't find anything else by him.