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Series · political thriller

The Twelfth Imam

by Joel C. Rosenberg

The Twelfth Imam series by Joel C. Rosenberg has 3 known books (3 published). It is best read in publication order, starting with The Twelfth Imam (2010). Damascus Countdown is the latest book with a fully recorded publication date.

Books
3 known books (3 novels)
Published
3
First published
2010
Status
completed
Shelved under
Thriller
Start here: The Twelfth Imam (2010) — then read straight through in publication order.
Book one
Cover of The Twelfth Imam
The Twelfth Imam (2010)

Reading order

The date order of published books and any announced future entries — the default way to read the series.

  1. The Twelfth Imam

    Novel
    The Twelfth Imam opens Joel C. Rosenberg's trilogy in October 2010 at 490 pages, sending CIA officer David Shirazi undercover inside Iran's telecommunications sector as the regime races toward a nuclear weapon.
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  2. The Tehran Initiative

    Novel
    The Tehran Initiative followed almost exactly a year after The Twelfth Imam, in October 2011, continuing CIA officer David Shirazi's undercover operation inside Iran's telecommunications sector at 462 pages. Joel C. Rosenberg keeps pairing conventional espionage-thriller plotting -- double agents, centrifuge facilities, assassination attempts -- with prophecy-driven stakes drawn from Iranian eschatology, ahead of the trilogy's conclusion in Damascus Countdown.
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  3. Damascus Countdown

    Novel
    Damascus Countdown closes the trilogy in March 2013, arriving nearly a year and a half after book two to bring the three-book countdown to its climax.
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Key facts about The Twelfth Imam series

The Twelfth Imam series has 3 books on our list. Since all 3 are out now, you can read the whole list today.

Start with The Twelfth Imam, since it opens the publication order in 2010. The Tehran Initiative is book 2, from 2011. Damascus Countdown is book 3, from 2013.

Each title links to its own page, while the list keeps them in date order. Each book page shows its dates and editions.

Damascus Countdown is the latest book with a full release date, out on 5 March 2013. Since the catalogue marks the series as complete, we list no next book.

The books came out between 2010 and 2013, while their length runs from 462 to 490 pages. That is a run of 3 years.

Joel C. Rosenberg has 18 books on our list. Additionally, they write The Last Jihad, J.B. Collins and Marcus Ryker. We shelve the books under political thriller.

About The Twelfth Imam

Rosenberg's second series moves its cast and its central premise from the Israeli-Palestinian-focused Last Jihad books to Iran. David Shirazi is a CIA officer working undercover inside Iran's telecommunications sector as the regime races toward a nuclear weapon while its Twelver Shia leadership publicly anticipates the imminent return of the Mahdi (the "Twelfth Imam") -- a messianic figure whose arrival, in the series' reading of Iranian eschatology, is meant to be hastened by regional chaos and war with Israel and the West. Shirazi has to build and run a spy network inside the regime while an American president has to decide whether to strike Iran's nuclear program before it becomes irreversible, across a tightening three-book countdown.

As with the Last Jihad series, Rosenberg pairs conventional espionage-thriller plotting -- double agents, centrifuge facilities, assassination attempts -- with prophecy-driven stakes drawn from his own reading of Islamic eschatology and, in the nonfiction books he published alongside this series (Inside the Revolution, Inside the Revival), his reporting on the Iranian regime and Iran's underground Christian movement. The trilogy is self-contained and reaches a definite conclusion in Damascus Countdown.

Frequently asked questions

How many books are in the Twelfth Imam series?

Three: The Twelfth Imam (2010), The Tehran Initiative (2011), and Damascus Countdown (2013).

Is this connected to The Last Jihad?

No -- different lead character (CIA officer David Shirazi rather than Jon Bennett) and no shared cast or continuing storyline, though both series share Rosenberg's Middle East geopolitical-thriller style and prophecy-driven stakes.

What is the 'Twelfth Imam'?

In Twelver Shia Islam, the Mahdi -- a messianic figure believed to have gone into hiding and destined to return. The series imagines the Iranian regime deliberately fostering regional war to hasten that return, and builds its plot around a CIA effort to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons in that context.

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