Perfect Soldiers

"The definitive book on the nineteen men who brought such devastation and terror to this country... a well-told, meticulously researched cautionary tale." - Washington Post Book World
The attacks of September 11, 2001, were a calamity on a scale few had imagined possible. In their aftermath, we exaggerated the men who perpetrated the attacks, shaping hasty and often mistaken reporting into caricatures we could comprehend-monsters and master criminals equal to the enormity of their crime. In reality, the 9/11 hijackers were unexceptional men, not much different from countless others. It is this ordinary enemy, not the caricature, that we must understand if we are to have a legitimate hope of defeating terrorism.
Using research undertaken in twenty countries on four continents, Los Angeles Timescorrespondent Terry McDermott provides gripping, authoritative portraits of the main players in the 9/11 plot. With brilliant reporting and thoughtful analysis, McDermott brings us a clearer, more nuanced, and in some ways more frightening, understanding of the landmark event of our time.
"The very best [book] available... on the subject." - Los Angeles Times
"Absorbing.... [A] richly textured narrative full of the sort of small, telling details that turn these men from faceless figures of evil into individuals." - New York Times
"Bound to become one of the most insightful books ever published about September 11." - Houston Chronicle
"Offers riveting accounts of the final weeks and days as the plotters prepared to carry out their horrific mission." - Booklist
"Chilling." - Kirkus Reviews
"This is journalism at its best." -Seymour M. Hersh, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist
"Engrossing and deeply disturbing." - Publishers Weekly