Yet Shahzad errs half way through the book by offering a lengthy interruption that analyses the ideology and Arab politics that gave rise to Al-Qaeda in a way that is both tiring and unsophisticated. The book could have done without this. Similarly, both the structure of the book and Shahzad’s style of writing are frustrating: Shahzad hops back and forth in a number of places, making the book seem repetitive in spite of its novelty; likewise, every couple of pages he insists on stating that Al-Qaeda’s situation in Pakistan is reminiscent of a drama from Thousand and One Nights.