Osama

Tidhar (Cloud Permutations) offers perhaps the weirdest fictional take yet on Osama Bin Laden in this offbeat and enigmatic thriller. The prologue briefly describes the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi by al-Qaeda in 1998. But that section turns out to be part of a pulp novel, Assignment: Africa, the third in the popular Osama Bin Laden: Vigilante series, authored by someone writing as Mike Longshott. An unnamed woman who wants to locate Longshott hires Joe, a private detective based in Vientiane, Laos, for the job, with no expenses spared. The obvious first stop is Paris, home of Medusa Press, which publishes Longshott's books, but Joe's investigation doesn't follow a linear path. The less than rigorous internal logic (e.g., in this reality, Joe, who appears to be an ex-pat American, has never heard of the World Trade Center) and a bizarre encounter with Mr. Rick from the movie Casablanca may leave some readers scratching their heads. (Oct.)