A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping from Two Sides

David Rhode and Kristin Mulvihill's book, A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping from Two Sides, is one of those books that sounds great on paper. It has all the intrigue of a fabulous story--a kidnapping in a faraway land, the new bride at home tossed into the confusing, mysterious world of government agents and international agendas as she tries to free her new husband from the clutches of murderous extremists and a backdrop of international terrorism and religious zealotry. Rhode and Mulvihill manage to take that set of facts and make it into a dry, boring, tedious work that will desperately make you wish you weren't the type of person who finishes books that you start regardless of their quality.

Rhode is a Pulizter-prize winning journalist and his skill in writing and narrating isn't entirely lost in this dull, occasionally self-indulgent memoir/expose/snoozefest. Mulvihill's presence in the book adds an element of vacuous tedium, the voice of a powerless woman who spends her time pining for her husband with a ticking biological clock and a career built on the vanity and materialism of other vapid, dull women. Her portions of the book made me long for the riveting plots of Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer where his sections of the book reminded me of that dull history professor with a penchant for including family stories in his lectures.

I'd place this book in a category with Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea and that's a far better read.