28th book of 2020. MBS is a reasonable way to catch up on the last 10 years of Saudi politics.
I’ve stayed relatively unplugged from Saudi politics since the time I lived there in 2009, and wow! so much has happened since then. A reverse caper in the Ritz carlton where the prince was able to take back $100 billion, a leader from the new generation upending what was coming up on 100 years of family tradition, these sorts of stories are where Game of Thrones gets its source material. The book started out on strong footing, but what started out as a nuanced portrait of MBS collapsed towards villany as the book progressed. The second half felt very similar to describing Putin or other autocratic world leaders.
Overall, the book doesn’t venture into detail that would be available beyond the NYT or a first-level wikipedia search, which makes me sad considering Robert Lacey’s excellent books already published about Saudi Arabia. I was really hoping for more analysis or detail either about the Harrari kidnapping or the Ritz episode – being able to imprison somebody, extort them for $6b in wealth, and then have them enthusiastically join your entourage afterwards seems like quite the feat, and even speculation would have been helpful in understanding what might have happened. Maybe someday we’ll get the answers…
Raw notes: *Putin of Saudi Arabia ~What really happened in the Ritz? +What happened is as good as any game of thrones novel -Abruptly ends with the murder of Khashoggi -Wish there was a historical perspective -A novel length amalgamation of news articles -Doesn’t rise to the level of Robert Lacey