Product Description

The Eagles, a team of volunteers from the executive ranks of a US corporation, hand-picked and trained by a retired Green Beret officer, are sent to penetrate a heavily-guarded prison fortress in Iran, and free the Americans imprisoned there - against terrible odds of success and survival.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #103545 in Books
• Published on: 1998-07-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

Customer Reviews

First Non-Fiction I really enjoyed
I have read many of Ken Follet's books and count him as one of my favourite authors. On Wings of Eagles is a real story about a rescue mission of 2 American businessmen who have been looked up in an Iranian jail. The story is quite dramatized, but I still think it works and captures the reader as this has been written as a novel. Overall I would categories this book as a very good book, as it is fun to read, it captures you that it is hard to stop and in addition you learn about the political situation during this time.

Note: This is a non-fiction book !
I find Folletts novels very entertaining, but this is NOT a novel, but a kind of 'dramatized' account of a real-life rescue of two American citizens from a jail in Teheran. I think that a straight objective account of the incident would have done more justice to the people involved in the mission. And because it reads like a novel you expect to see more action and suspense. All in all, I suggest that you don't read this book, before you have read all of Folletts novels.

PUBLISHERS REVIEW [From The Dust Jacket Flaps]
I believe that most readers choose a book from the publisher's advertisements, [eye catching, illustrated dust jackets / the publishers review(s) on the jacket flaps]. FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE, I HAVE SUUPLIED A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE BOOK, AND HERE IS WHAT THE JACKET FLAPS STATE:

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Among thousands of people imperilled by the Iranian Revolution of 1979, two men in special danger were senior executives of the Electronic Data Systems Corporation of Texas, under contract to the Shah's government to build a nationwide social security network from scratch. They were arrested on trumped up charges of bribery and corruption, thrown into jail, and left to wonder what the arbitrary sentence of the Revolution would be.

But what the American's insiduious and seemingly omnipresent persecutor Dadgar did not reckon with was the force of character of Ross Perot, the Texan head of EDS, and the loyalty of the men who surrounded him. By tenacity, resolution and the ability to inspire others, Perot had built EDS into a multi-billion dollar corporation and himself into one of the most successful men in the story of American capitalism. These resources, human and financial, he put behind a project to get his men out of Iran - legally if possible, illegally if not.

'On Wings of Eagles' is the story how that challenge drew out of a group of quite ordinary men - Perot's employees - quite extraordinary qualities; of how they attempted to counter the terrifying uncertainties of the Islamic holy war against Westerners with little more than determination and the leadership of a legendary US Army Colonel. It is the remarkable account how friendships and professional loyalty made them put their own lives at risk so that EDS employees would not suffer as the more famous - and unrescued - hostages in the American Embassy would later suffer.

Ken Follett displays once again the brilliance and power of storytelling that he brought to his fictional novels 'Eye of the Needle', 'Triple', 'The Key to Rebecca', 'The Man from St Petersburg'. The difference is that this time his extraordinary story is true.