Books like Escape: The Love Story from Whirlwind

Bullet Review:I FINISHED!!! With it being nearly 600 pages, I am SO PROUD.What a "whirlwind"!!! Full review to come.Full Review:Erikki Yokkonen is a pilot with a S-G, a helicopter company working in Iran; Azadeh is his wife, the daughter of Abdollah Gorgon Khan, the leader of the Gorgon family and a leader in Iranian Azerbaijan. The Iranian Revolution is taking place; the Shah has been forced out and Ayatolleh Khomeini is now in power. With this, the entire S-G operation is at stake; also Erikki and Azadeh keep getting torn apart. Can the company get out of Iran - and can Erikki and Azadeh find peace with each other. This is a buddy read with my dear friend Iset, who gave me this book, citing it as one that she had read when younger and enjoyed greatly. I was intrigued; while I had read The Complete Persepolis, my education about the Iranian Revolution was highly limited to the sketch information I retrieve while in high school. We discussed doing a Buddy Read and this was the book we decided we had to read.Now that I've (finally!) finished, I must say that it was a thrill-ride, but some of the characters were irritating and it definitely feels like a "Cliff Notes" version of a more complete story - criticisms I see on several reviews of this book.Firstly, the characters. While this book did include some interestin females (Genny), for the most part, I felt they were "pretty set decoration" and had little to influence the plot and other characters. Certainly 1970's Iran wasn't necessarily the best time to be a woman, but I have a hard time believing that they were all nearly the doormats that Azadeh and Sharazad were in this book. As for the men, they tended to be one type: that super-ultra masculine manly man you expect in cheesy 80's movies. (Perhaps appropriate because this was written in the 80's? Maybe, but still, if the women don't wield weapons like Sarah Connor or Ripley, then the men don't get a free pass for being the Terminator or Rambo.) Erikki in particular wasn't a very likeable "hero"; he was a jealous, angry, violent man who would frequently boss his wife around. (Some may be part of a "ploy" but still deplorable.)Secondly, the plot. I feel there is a fabulous story that is just barely touched on in this book. Frequently, we pull away from characters for hundreds of pages, just to summarize what happened in a mere 4 pages. (The Fates of Ross and McIvers fair this way, leading to zero tension and only a big question mark, wondering what happened that the reader missed.) And that ending! After all the reader has been through, that ending felt like the biggest, hugest cop-out/deus ex machina!The one thing this book has going for it is that it never stops. It's always moving. This is a true thriller in that stuff is happening on every page - political machinations, manipulations, escapes, espionage, plotting, planning, etc. You wouldn't be remiss for not noting the above because the plot twists and turns faster than a roller coaster at Disneyland.This book was 584 pages and not once did I feel something was dragging and irrelevant. The problem was, I felt that, somehow, 584 pages was not nearly enough to truly tell this story.Just skimming "Whirlwind"'s entry on Wikipedia reveals a much larger, more complete cast. I have no doubt that that book better describes this harrowing escape. I don't know if I'll get around to reading it, as I have many other books to get through (including several other recommendations from my friend, Iset!). But it would be interesting to see what was cut and what was not in the full story "Whirlwind".