$ 

Want this eBook?

Our Reader™ software is required to purchase and download eBooks. Download it here.Click here to purchase this book!

We Are Holding the President Hostage: How the Mafia Fights Terrorism

Overview

Aging Mafia Don Salvatore Padronelli, a.k.a. the Padre, is furious when fanatical terrorists capture his beloved daughter and grandson on a trip to Egypt. Fed up with diplomatic caution that prolongs their captivity, the Padre and his loyal henchman cleverly insinuate themselves into the White House and hold the President and his wife hostage. Now the Padre calls the shots on getting the President to take steps to release his family. This classic confrontation between two men on utterly opposite sides of the law is laced with humor and illustrates how fierce paternal love can motivate even the most ruthless of gangsters into reckless acts of courage and bravery.

Author Information

Warren Adler

Warren Adler is a world-renowned novelist, short story writer and playwright. His books have been translated into more than 25 languages and two of his novels, The War of the Roses and Random Hearts, have been made into enormously popular movies, shown continually throughout the world.

Three short stories from his acclaimed collection The Sunset Gang have been adapted as a trilogy and shown on Public Television stations. The Overlook Press will publish a new novel, his 29th, in Spring 2008, and his fifth short story collection, New York Echoes will be published in late Winter of 2008 by Stonehouse Press. His play Libido is scheduled for an off-Broadway production in 2008. His stage adaptation of the novel The War of the Roses is currently being produced in Italy, Berlin, Hamburg, Prague and countries in Scandinavia.

Mr. Adler is a pioneer in electronic publishing and has acquired his complete backlist and converted this entire library to digital publishing formats. As a novelist, Mr. Adler's themes deal primarily with intimate human relationships--the mysterious nature of love and attraction, the fragile relationships between husbands and wives and parents and children, the corrupting power of money, the aging process and how families cling together when challenged by the outside world. Readers and reviewers have cited his books for their insight and wisdom in presenting and deciphering the complexities of contemporary life.


A product of the New York public school system, Mr. Adler graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School and New York University, where he majored in English literature. Inspired by his freshman English Professor Don Wolfe, Mr. Adler went on to study creative writing with Dr. Wolfe when he taught at the New School. He also studied under Dr. Charles Glicksburg at the New School.

Among his classmates were Mario Puzo, William Styron and many other talented writers. Two collections of short stories "American Vanguard" and "Which Grain Will Grow" were published by Doubleday and represented a showcase of many young emerging authors, who like Warren Adler, won both popular and critical acclaim.

"I wanted to be a novelist since I was fifteen years old," he says. "Throughout my early career, I would write from five to ten in the morning every day before going to my office, a habit that has stayed with me since."

After graduating from New York University with a degree in English literature, Mr. Adler worked for the New York Daily News before becoming Editor of the Queens Post, a prize winning weekly newspaper on Long Island. His column "Pepper on the Side" became a staple of a number of newspapers in the country.

During the Korean War, after basic training he was recruited by Armed Forces Press Service to serve in the Pentagon as the only Washington Correspondent for the service. His Washington by-line went all over the world and was published in every publication put out by the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard.

Prior to his success as a novelist, Mr. Adler had a distinguished business career. He has owned four radio stations and a TV station, has run his own advertising and public relations agency in Washington, D.C. and was one of the founders with his wife Sonia and son David of the Washington Dossier magazine.

When his first novel was published in 1974, he became a full time novelist.

Today, when not writing, Mr. Adler lectures on creative writing, motion picture adaptation and the future of Electronic Books. He is the founder of the Jackson Hole Writer's Conference and has been Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Jackson Hole Public Library. He is married to the former Sonia Kline, a magazine editor. He has three sons, David, Jonathan and Michael and four grandchildren and lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

Nearly two dozen Americans are already being held hostage in the Middle East when a young American woman and her son are abducted by a professional terrorist in a botched political kidnapping outside the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. President Paul Bernard's attempts to effect the release of the hostages have so far been thwarted when four men disguised as waiters snatch him and his wife from a state dinnner in the White House and hold them hostage in the President's quarters. The leader of the kidnappers is the head of the most powerful Mafia family in the U.S., and the new American woman hostage is his only daughter. The President will not be released until the woman and her child are safely recovered. The President brings in the ruthless, ambitious head of the CIA who pools resources with the Mafia don in a worldwide campaign to force the hand of the terrorist. Adler (Random Hearts delivers a gripping modern-day thriller about the ages-old dilemmas of vengeance and responsibility. (October 28) -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Customer Reviews

1931304610

There are no customer reviews available at this time. To add your review, Register or Sign In to your account using our free Reader Library software.

Product Details

  • Published by

    Stonehouse Press

  • Publish Date

    April 29, 2001 

  • Print ISBN

    1931304610

  • eBook ISBN

    1590062159

  • Imprint

    Stonehouse Press

  • Filesize

    297.56 KB

  • Number of Print Pages*

    296

* Number of eBook pages may differ. Click here for more information.

Excerpt from We Are Holding the President Hostage by Warren Adler

First Chapter Preview

A Mafia Don swings into action when terrorists capture his daughter and grandson.

EVEN HERE, MARIA THOUGHT, a pebble?s throw from the grimy once-ornate facade of the Egyptian Museum, the fetid stew of Cairo in July hung in the air, noxious and unhealthy. From the car she could see shimmering thermal patterns, like ghostly dervishes, whirling through the late-afternoon falluca traffic on the river.

Joey's rubber ball made pocking sounds against the rear deck of the Mercedes. It printed smudges in the dusty surface but left no damage, and she let him amuse himself. Her gaze drifted toward the hodgepodge of vehicles thrashing forward in the streets: ramshackle buses choked with people, trucks belching dark exhausts, cars of every vintage, donkeys pulling flatbed carts, a slow-moving river of molasses. She contemplated the impending Friday run to Alexandria. It would be a gut-wrenching punishment.

One more time she looked at her watch. Robert had told her that the schedule called for the delegation to be finished with the museum tour by four, which meant five or thereabouts, acknowledging the Egyptian penchant for defying punctuality. It was now fifteen minutes past five.

Can't duck this one, Robert had apologized at breakfast, offering his mock-exasperated smile, mischievous under his shock of sandy hair, which made him appear so deceptively yielding and innocent. How misleading, she thought, warmed, once again, by the image. After all, hadn?t he defied the vaunted all-powerful Padre. She allowed herself a private grin as a momentary picture of her father, like a bit of flotsam on the slate gray of the Nile, passed briefly on the flow of memory. Padre! Her voice could never say it, although it resonated often in her mind. He is daddy, she protested, yet again, whispering the word.

What? Joey asked, coming to the open window.

Nothing, sweets.

We?ll be late, Mommy.

Late for what? she asked patiently.

For a swim. Joey pouted. You promised.

Then I?ll keep it. Even if it?s dark.

But I'm afraid of the dark, Mommy.

She was disturbed that her irritation had made her say that. Impatience and the heat, she rationalized.

We'll make it, sweets. You?ll see,? she said gently, putting out her hand, ruffling his hair. He smiled and went back to the rear of the car, resuming his game.