American imperialism and the war on terror loom large in today’s popular romances. Military romances featuring spec-ops warriors and their terrorist enemies appeal to, reflect on, and sometimes critique patriotic ideals. Sheikh heroes and monstrous Muslim men provide seemingly opposed yet actually interdependent Orientalist fantasies of racialized Arab/Middle Eastern masculinity. Bestselling author Suzanne Brockmann, known for her inclusive characters and plotlines, addresses these themes in her Troubleshooters series (2000-present). Troubleshooters centers on Navy SEALs and FBI counterterrorism agents. Brockmann simultaneously deploys and undercuts stereotypes of Muslim men while appealing to pro-American sentiment. An al-Qaeda attack and the hunt for its perpetrator structure the suspense plots of the first two post-9/11 installments, Into the Night (2002) and Gone Too Far (2003), while interracial romance storylines grapple with anti-Arab bigotry and anti-black racism. Like authors of sheikh novels, Brockmann appeals to knowledge and relationships as a means of overcoming prejudice. Yet rather than white feminism integrating Arab/Muslim/Middle Eastern heroes into neoliberal modernity, Brockmann displaces the setting for social reform from a fictionalized Middle East to America, signaling prejudice as a crucial threat to America’s safety as well as to individuals’ well-being. For Brockmann, stereotypes imperil national security if real threats go unnoticed while racialized Muslims are stigmatized as violent and fanatical. Moreover, she claims, positive as well as negative stereotypes prevent intimacy and love from flourishing. Ultimately, while taking cognizance of larger social norms and discourses and critiquing anti-Muslim bigotry and anti-black racism, Brockmann emphasizes individual inner transformation resulting from intimate human connections across racial-ethnic differences.
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