The tomb of the twelfth imam

1978: there's an uprising of the ayatollahs in Iran, but the revolution is squelched and the Shah survives to rule happily and declare his son the long-awaited Islamic messiah. What No, this isn't history--it's a novel written just before the real uprising and with a scenario vastly different from the way it actually happened. Bulliet has built his fanciful version of Iranian uproar around the legendary prophecy of the Twelfth Imam: the messianic ""Mahdi"" and true leader of the Muslims who is to return to earth and kill the Great Beast (the Shah) and herald a millennium of peace before the end of the world. So the shenanigans begin when archaeology prof Benjamin Groves locates the tomb of this Twelfth Imam, inspiring a cult to trumpet the imminent arrival of the Mahdi. The Shah's government at first denies the validity of the tomb, of course, but the minister of art and culture, who was educated at Cai Tech, sees a way to capitalize on the cult, murder the Shah, and take over the country while himself posing as the Mahdi. Meanwhile, however, another false Mahdi is about to be put forth--by the subversive skulduggery of the Islamic Marxist underground, the upper ranks of the Muslim clergy, and a faction within SAVAK. Groves and U.S. diplomat Frank Quintan penetrate and observe these four major plots at crosspurposes, and it's Groves who finally saves the day by dreaming up a Messiahship for the Shah's son. Convoluted nonsense--but, with spirited dialogue in Teheran and Washington (""If it's not the Arabs and Israelis pissing on each other, it's some weird sort of sideshow""): a lively, witty, irreligious thriller. This book is useful even though it is written prior to the Iranian Revolution because it gives the reader a feel for internal conditions in Iran and attitudes of the Persian people. And it is written around real geographical locations.