Endorsed by Arpaio: The 9 Most Insane Parts of Steven Seagal's Novel

Even though he wrote the foreword, Joe Arpaio hasn’t read it yet. But we did, and it might be the worst book we’ve ever read.

Of course, we’re talking about The Way of the Shadow Wolves: The Deep State and the Hijacking of America, co-written by actor Steven Seagal. Although it was published in October, the book’s existence only surfaced recently thanks to Twitter.

For this book, former Arizona Republican Party Chairman Tom Morrissey and Seagal took a dive into conspiracy-land. The plot involves a cross-border smuggling operation bringing terrorists into the U.S. to create a caliphate.

In an interview last week, Arpaio said he hasn't gotten around to reading Seagal's book. This is a little bit confusing — in his foreword, the former sheriff makes it seems like he’s very familiar with its contents.

"I strongly identify with this book because in many ways I lived what is portrayed on its pages," Arpaio writes.

I have known and worked with Steven Seagal, who is a law enforcement officer, along with being an international movie star. He has an unusual understanding of the world in which this story takes place. During his time with my office he proved his skills as a fugitive hunter when he arrested one of our top fugitives within forty eight hours after beginning the search for him.

It must be noted that Seagal joined Arpaio's volunteer "posse" after the actor had left the set of a reality show in Louisiana, where Seagal play-acted a similar law enforcement role. In a lawsuit, an executive assistant on the show said Seagal sexually assaulted her. After he joined Arpaio's team, in 2011 while the cameras were rolling, Seagal and Arpaio's deputies crashed an armored tank into a man's home, according to another lawsuit. The homeowner also said Seagal's raid killed their dog.

Arpaio told Phoenix New Times that he doesn't have much to add to his claims in the foreword, where Arpaio says that a Deep State exists and is attempting to undermine Trump.

But perhaps there's another reason why Arpaio hasn't had time to read — it seems like he's still fuming over being shoved out of office in 2016. "That’s another big story that will come out — Soros, and everything else," Arpaio told New Times, referring to billionaire donor George Soros, the boogeyman of conspiracy theorists everywhere, who often claim Soros is funding paid anti-Trump protesters.

Arpaio also brought up his criminal contempt of court guilty verdict — which stemmed from his office's rampant racial-profiling abuses and which would have handed him up to six months in jail, but for Trump's pardon — as his "misdemeanor."

Despite picking up the phone on the second ring, Arpaio wants you to know that he's very busy, he's got a lot on his plate, and, just in case you were wondering, he's not going to retire with a presidential pardon in hand.

"I’ve been busy doing a lot of things," Arpaio said, including writing a new book and mulling a run for Jeff Flake's open Senate seat. "My political future is not dead."

We'll believe it when we see it.

As for the book, here are the most astonishing, terribly written, embarrassing, and offensive passages from The Way of the Shadow Wolves. This is for the benefit of the former sheriff.

Please bear in mind that this is a very abridged list. Many worthy candidates for bonkers-quote-of-the-year didn't make the cut. 

The story begins in a movie theater, where a voiceover literally explains that "shadow wolves" are elite Native American trackers. The protagonist, a tribal police officer and shadow wolf named John Gode, looks on.

A man sits alone, quietly watching the film in the back of the darkened theater. He stirs in his seat and comments to himself, "It's about time." John Gode rises slowly from his seat and continues viewing as he backs up, slowly making his way out of the theater into the lobby.

Gode soon picks up the thread of a potential Deep State plot to open the borders, with some manic theorizing about the media and the Obama administration. In this paragraph, not only do Seagal and Morrissey use the analogy of "thirsty nomads in a desert oasis," they also refer to "Other Than Mexicans" who are about to create a "jihadi caliphate."

His sense was that the then presidential administration in Washington was using the media as their potent tool for forwarding their open-borders agenda. He felt that they were poisoning the minds of the many who drank up what they were spewing like thirsty nomads in a desert oasis. What troubled John even more was that the country was asleep when it came to the "OTMs" or "Other Than Mexicans" coming across a virtually open southern border into the country and possibly assembling for what America had never known before — a jihadi caliphate.

A Deep State plotter actually uses the phrase "I'm too old for this shit." He then lays out Obama's nefarious plan in movie-villain style. I'm guessing this is another one of Seagal's action-star contributions.

"I'm too old for this shit,” he thought. Then he continued, "Let's go, people. I have fifteen minutes to tell you what you need to be doing for the next week. POTUS has accelerated his timeline for Operation Paperclip II. We have one thousand jihadists coming in next month; they all need to be in position and ready to go for the second wave of violence across America that kicks off on Two July.”

Did you think that this novel would leave out a romantic side plot? The scenes with Gode and his "lady" Alicia, a fellow tribal police officer, are breathtakingly bad. At times, I had to stop reading to look out the window for a break.

[Gode] heard a door close in the back of the house as he walked in. Pulling his weapon, he ducked down and moved stealthily with the speed of an ocelot toward the noise. But when he arrived, he found nothing that could have caused it. He searched the area and then turned on a light before holstering his weapon. He walked into his bedroom and was stunned for the moment at the sight of Alicia lying across his bed with one of his shirts on — and that was about it.

"Hey, did I scare you, little boy?" She threw her head back, released her long, black hair, and gave a sultry laugh as she devoured him with her eyes. She waved him to her.

"Hey, baby. Nice surprise. Almost got you killed, though.”

Sometimes the book is downright confusing. It's hard to follow who's speaking during dialogue-heavy scenes like this one, which also features more predatory-animal analogies from the authors.

John took the conversation back to the seriousness of the situation. "What do you think about this, Armando? What the hell is going on?" John turned around with the swiftness of a tiger and the intensity of a charging bear and went right into the face of the man who was rocked by the words flying out of the Shadow Wolf's mouth.

"Settle down, John. We get nowhere if we start lashing out at one another.”

But then we get into the action, which somehow manages to be even more boring than the dialogue. Fight scenes where Gode takes on Deep State bad guys have Seagal's fingerprints all over them. In this part, Gode pummels some turncoat federal agents who are in league with the Deep State. The martial-arts choreography is mind-numbing.

The third agent set up in a Praying Mantis kung fu fighting position and threw a double punch at John, just missing his face. John realized that this guy was a trained martial artist just by his movements. The agent threw a crescent kick that turned into a straight kick. Again, John wasn't where his assailant thought he would be, and it threw him completely off. The big lawman hit him three times within a second, laying him out across the table.

Gode talks to Alicia about the "clear path of logic" that shows Sharia is already here in the U.S., including in Michigan. Behind the plan is Obama, a secret Muslim.

"If you run this along a clear path of logic, all you gotta do is connect the dots. Over the past seven years, we have had a big increase in mosques in almost every state. Parts of Michigan are now under Sharia law. Sharia law, here in the United States, babe. We, our people, are a sovereign nation, like all our tribes around this country, and we have our courts, but we are still subjugated to the high law of the US. Right?”

"Right.”

"How come those who only recently arrived here have been given the freedom to have their own court system not subject to the US government? Here's the answer, and it's not rocket science... who's been running this country for the past seven or eight years? Who was raised Muslim? Who apologizes for America to its enemies? Who bows to Muslim kings? Who has a history that no one can know?" John's passion was driven by the deep frustration of watching his country being so easily corrupted and manipulated and led to place from which there could be no return.

Near the novel's climatic ending, Gode gets into a knife fight with one of the plotters after dipping his blade in pig's blood. Read this passage, and wonder, as I did: Who are they writing this garbage for?

"How's that pig blood feel, asshole? Is it starting to course through your veins, maybe even pissing off the Prophet?" John said in hoarse whisper.

Kazi smiled cunningly and announced, “I have a special delivery for you from the Prophet." He lunged again at John's throat with the point of his knife first. John made a ghost move, evading the thrust, and answered with a deep stab into the Persian's throat, killing him instantly. He dropped to the ground, on his way to meet his Allah.

The book features an epilogue, titled “Our Country Under Siege,” which describes the aftermath of the events of the novel and segues to Trump's victory over the swamp. At this point, I was so happy for the book to be over that I almost didn't catch the reference to Soros and paid protesters.

The former POTUS was in full disaster mode, leading an effort to discredit and drive his successor from office. Fully funded by a multi-billionaire outside the country, rioters were being recruited and paid for by this cabal and were waging war against the Constitution and the will of the American people.

This might not be the last time we hear from Morrissey and Seagal. According to Morrissey, they have plans for a sequel.