Mastermind

The White House recently announced plans to reinstate military tribunals for alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. The most newsworthy one will be for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - the Al Qaeda genius who organized 9/11 and several other terrorist plots, many the world has yet to learn about.

Award-winning investigative journalist Richard Miniter has written the first detailed expose of KSM, a man of many faces, who delights in manipulating the media, the courts, even President Obama himself. MASTERMIND: The Many Faces of the 9/11 Architect, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (Sentinel, May 3) reveals Mohammed's rise to the top of Al Qaeda and many untold details about 9/11, the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, and plots to kill Bill Clinton and the Pope, among others.

A frank, sober and frightening profile, MASTERMIND uproots the seeds of KSM's radicalism and details: How KSM may have dreamed up his first assassination while still a student in North Carolina The untold story of KSM's rivalry with Osama bin Laden How the plotting of 9/11 nearly failed due to "office politics" How KSM's waterboarding helped the CIA stop terror plots already in motion How Obama administration officials contrived to keep KSM alive-and lied to the families of 9/11 victims Why it may be more dangerous to execute KSM than to keep him alive

We have to understand what shapes and drives men like KSM or terrorism will go on forever.

Miniter combines on-the-scene reporting on three continents, thousands of documents, reports from intelligence agencies in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the United States, as well as eyewitness accounts and exclusive interviews. MASTERMIND reads like a fast-paced spy thriller, but has serious implications for our lives and our security.

Richard Miniter, an award-winning investigative journalist, has written two New York Times bestsellers: Losing Bin Laden and Shadow War. He was an editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal in Brussels and a member of the famed investigative team of The Sunday Times in London. He has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, Reader's Digest, Forbes, Newsweek, The New Republic, and National Review.