A Mighty Heart

January 5, 2004
Documentary film director and former French public radio and television journalist Pearl tenderly recounts the heartbreaking story behind the 2002 kidnapping and barbaric videotaped execution of her husband, Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl, in this candid and inspirational audio recording. There's no mistaking the steel beneath Mariane's lilting French accent as she explains why she wrote this book—to defy her husband's killers—and how she distrusted Karachi, a decadent city where anti-American and anti-Semitic sentiments abound, from the start. Her telling of her husband's abduction and the frantic attempts to save him is dramatic and disturbing, but she tempers it with choice memories of her and Danny's first meeting, courtship, marriage and excitement over their impending baby. Details about the historical, social and political background of the Middle East help illuminate the area and its inhabitants, but ultimately, this is a loving, illuminating and movingly recounted tale of love and courage. Simultaneous release with the Scribner hardcover (Forecasts, Aug. 25).

The wife of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl recounts his kidnapping in early 2002 and the attempt to find him. This book briefly discuses Pearl's life, but mostly we learn about his time in Pakistan shortly before his kidnapping and the efforts by his wife and others to rescue him from terrorists. It's a dramatic story, made more so by the fact that it's true. Mariane Pearle's French accent is strong, and at times she is not perfectly clear. Her emotion, however, is strongly and clearly communicated. M.L.C. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine