“Impossible Odds” by Buchanan, Landemalm and Flacco – The Life of a Hostage

Some of you may remember Jessica Buchanan’s name from the news, and with good reason; while on a humanitarian aid mission in Somalia (and hoping to settle there), she and a colleague were kidnapped by Somali pirates and held hostage for ninety-three days until a rescue operation was ordered. 

Determined not to remain silent about her experience, Jessica Buchanan, along with Erik Landemalm and Anthony Flacco wrote a first-hand account of the experience, and titled it Impossible Odds.

Though the book has been spruced up here and there to be exciting for the reader and retain your attention, everything is based on facts and first-hand accounts. The whole ordeal is chronicled from start to finish, beginning with the events in Buchanan’s life prior to the kidnapping, going through the torturous three months, and ending with the harrowing and nail-biting hostage rescue during which SEAL Team Six killed nine pirates without harming the hostages or suffering casualties themselves.

This is not only a look at how the operation was conducted from the government’s side, but it is also an in-depth exploration of what being a hostage for the Somali pirates was like. It pretty much looks at all sides of the equation, even attempting to explain to reasoning behind the Somali pirates’ actions.

Impossible Odds by Buchanan, Landemalm and Flacco (Book cover)
All in all, I have to say that I was pretty well entertained by this book, in the sense that it really allowed me to get as close as possible to such a harrowing experience without actually going through it. The story is told with exceptional detail in regards to every single perspective, and regardless of whether you’d want to read this book for the emotions experienced by Buchanan or to learn about the SEAL Team Six operation, you’ll definitely find all the juicy details you could ever ask for. 

All in all, this is one of the most well-written and interesting books in the “real military operations” genre (at least that’s what I like to call it) and I can safely recommend it to pretty much anyone interested in Buchanan’s story.

Jessica Buchanan (Author)

Jessica Buchanan


Personal site

Jessica Buchanan’s story is an extraordinary one, as she was once captured by Somali pirates, alongside Poul Hagen, and held in captivity for a few months until a team of Navy SEALs raided the compound she was held on, safely freeing them both. She wrote a book as an account of the events, titling it Impossible Odds.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

“The Locked Door” by Freida McFadden – Roots of a Lost Innocence

Image
  Freida McFadden has been quietly writing some exciting and original thrillers in her spare time from being a practicing physician, and The Locked Door is one of her latest offering in the genre.  It tells the story of Nora, a surgeon and daughter of a serial killer now in jail, who sees her life assaulted from the dark as someone begins to recreate her father's work with the exact same signature.
Read more

“The Lost Colony” by A.G. Riddle – A New Home Among the Stars

Image
A.G. Riddle's Long Winter Trilogy Series is one many of us will remember for the amazing story it brings of humanity's last stand against an overwhelming enemy in times of hopelessness. In The Lost Colony , the third book in the series, we follow James and Emma on their own respective struggles as humanity tries to settle itself on a new planet with an unseen danger none could have foreseen.
Read more

“Winter World” by A.G. Riddle – Ice Age from the Void

Image
A.G. Riddle is a true literary explorer seeking to push humanity to its limits and beyond, setting them on a desperate collision course with something beyond its understanding in Winter World . With a sudden ice age dawning on humanity entire swathes of land become uninhabitable and people begin dropping like flies, with anarchy reigning supreme. Looking to the stars for a miraculous solution, the remnants of humanity find a massive mysterious object floating near Mars ...whatever it is, our civilization's hopes of survival rest entirely in its hands.
Read more

“The Girl on the Stairs” by Barry Ernest – The Small Thorn you Can’t Ignore

Image
Girl on the Stairs , by Barry Ernest and with a foreword written by David Lifton, is an exploration of one specific aspect of the JFK assassination. More precisely, it looks into what a little girl by the name of Victoria Adams saw on that day while standing in the staircase of the Texas School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald was supposedly making his escape.  Actually, it is more about what she didn’t see than what she did see. Victoria was on the staircase Oswald supposedly used, at the exact same time he supposedly used it. If he were to be there, even the little girl she was, Victoria would have noticed a nervous man quickly running down the stairs. However, she says that on that day, she was alone there, with nobody to be found, especially Oswald.
Read more

“Three Comrades” by Erich Maria Remarque – The Other Side of the Barricade

Image
The two World Wars have been documented, discussed and depicted from virtually every perspective imaginable, ranging from small children caught in a crossfire all the way the leaders of each country. However, it seems that here is a startlingly small amount of attention dedicated to the small hiatus period between the two wars, a time during which many changes came to pass in Germany in a very short amount of time.
Read more