LAKE FOREST, CA (ANS) -- Dan Wooding’s career must rate as one of the most unusual in journalism.

He has gone from being a correspondent for the National Enquirer and a staffer on two of Britain's raciest tabloids, to an undercover reporter and campaigner for persecuted Christians in the restricted countries of the world.

'Red Dagger' cover

International journalist Wooding, 71, founder of the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net), has put his many years of exciting and often dangerous travel to good use in his first novel.

“Red Dagger”  is based on his many years of traveling to some of the world’s hot-spots. It features a Palestinian terrorist who belongs to the Red Dagger terror group from Gaza (a place that Wooding has visited several times), an Irish double agent, and a drunken American journalist who moves to London and spends too much time in a pub called “The White Hart” but nicknamed “The Stab in the Back” because that is where tabloid journalists gathered to verbally stab each other in the back.

Dan Wooding filming an interview with Brother Andrew in Hebron shortly before accompanying him into Gaza on the following day (Photo by Terry Madison)

Wooding knows all about this journalists’ pub as it was there that he recommitted his life to Christ back in the late 1970s and went to Uganda to write “Uganda Holocaust” with Irish-Canadian, Ray Barnett, who later founded the African Children’s Choir.

Each one of the characters finally finds redemption in their twisted lives, but not before much mayhem has been committed and the world had stood on the edge of complete disaster.

“The book is the result of more than 10 years of loving work,” Wooding told me. “It began when a colleague told me that I should put together a novel that incorporated all the years of personal experiences I have had since I first got into journalism in London back in 1968.”

This, said Wooding, has included the time he was arrested and locked up in a cell in Lagos, Nigeria. Also when he and a colleague were in a hotel in San Salvador when a car bomb exploded in the parking lot and badly damaged the hotel and, finally when he and his wife Norma were held up by terrorists in Bethlehem and were going to be shot by them. That was until a quick-thinking Arab taxi driver saved their lives by explaining they were visitors from the USA.

Dan Wooding pictured in the Lagos cell with one of the African prisoners (Photo was smuggled out by Dan)

"Although none of these experiences are used in the book as they occurred, they helped me to imagine many of the scenes included in the book,” said Wooding. “Also, my travels to Gaza were great background to writing up the many scenes there.”

“Red Dagger” has already received praise from various celebrities who have read it.

They include veteran American entertainer, Pat Boone, who said, “Dan Wooding’s latest book, ‘Red Dagger,’ is a gripping novel about terror, betrayal and redemption.

Much of it is set in Gaza, but also features a Northern Ireland terrorist and an American journalist who, after moving to London, finds himself spending too much time in a bar called ‘The Stab in the Back’ with other drunken hacks. The conclusion of the book has a most dramatic twist that held my attention right to the very end. I enthusiastically endorse Red Dagger, which is written by one of the world’s most traveled journalists.”

Rick Wakeman with the Wooding family at Hampton Court Palace after he had performed Six Wives of Henry VIII (Photo: Peter Wooding)

Rock keyboard legend, Rick Wakeman, about whom Wooding penned his biography called “Rick Wakeman – the Caped Crusader” – foreword by Elton John – wrote, “Terrorism is a dangerous subject both in reality and in fiction. To bring Christianity in as a major part of the plot is potentially even more dangerous, but Dan Wooding portrays all his characters as both very real and very believable in this novel that literally sets off at a tremendous pace from the very first page. I found myself thinking very visually whilst reading it and that's the secret of any good novel.”

Finally, Dr. Ted Baehr, Founder and Publisher of Movieguide® and chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission®, said, “A brilliant writer, Dan Wooding, who has authored over 40 books, has written a wonderful, compelling, evangelistic novel about Middle East terrorism. I highly recommend it.”

Dan Wooding interviews Pat Boone on the Red Carpet

So if you want to enter the dark and dangerous world of international terrorism and be inspired with its conclusion, this is the book for you, or even for a friend who loves good novels.

To purchase a copy of “Red Dagger” (Tanswell Books), go to: http://www.lulu.com/product/11050174?cid=060610_en_email_SUMMERREAD305

 It is also available as a file download.

If you live in the USA and would like an autographed copy of the book, just send a check for $20.00 (which includes postage) made out to Dan Wooding, and mail it to Dan Wooding, PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609. For overseas orders, please add a further $3.00 USD. Also, please put in the memo section of the check, “For Red Dagger.”

Note to the media: Dan Wooding is available for interviews about the book by e-mailing him at assistnews@aol.com.

Jeremy Reynalds is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service, a freelance writer and also the founder and CEO of Joy Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter, http://www.joyjunction.org He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New Mexico, and a Ph.D. in intercultural education from Biola University in Los Angeles. His newest book is "Homeless in the City." Additional details on "Homeless in the City" are available at http://www.homelessinthecity.com. Reynalds lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For more information contact: Jeremy Reynalds at jeremyreynalds@comcast.net.