From the acclaimed author of
Lie in the Dark and
The Small Boat of Great Sorrows, a high concept stand-alone thriller set in Afghanistan during the recent civil war.
Dropping into the smoky chaos of Peshawar after 9/11, Skelly, a burned-out American foreign correspondent, discovers that to survive in Peshawar's swirling humanity he will need a 'fixer': a local man who speaks English, knows the area, and is a jack-of-all-trades who can both save his skin and take him to the action. And for journalists in Peshawar, the real action is in Afghanistan.
Skelly chooses Najeeb, the banished son of a tribal warlord. Soon they are driving dusty roads westward in the shadowy wake of ex-Mujahadeen Mahmood Razaq, tipped to claim leadership of the next regime.Skelly's quest for the scoop of a lifetime means tracking down the one man the whole world is seeking.
And Najeeb, torn by divided loyalties, must find the way for both of them, in a land where a single misstep - or lapse of trust - can prove fatal.
Author ProfileDan Fesperman is a reporter for the
Baltimore Sun and worked in its Berlin bureau during the years of the civil war in former Yugoslavia, as well as in Afghanistan during the recent conflict.
His first novel,
Lie in the Dark, won the CWA John Creasey Award for Best First Crime Novel in 1999. His second,
The Small Boat of Great Sorrows,
won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller in 2003. Both books are also published by Black Swan.
ReviewsA new book by Dan Fesperman is becoming a major literary event ... Fesperman's experience as a war correspondent, together with his powers of description and characterisation, produce an utterly compelling thriller and quite simply the best book I've read all year','Almost alone in depicting the main theatre of war on terror, Fesperman proves equal to the challenge, producing impressive portraits of Peshawar and the mountainous borderlands','A terrific novel of intrigue, duplicity and death in the shadow of the Khyber Pass... Fesperman is that rare journalist who is also a gifted novelist...'The Warlord's Son' deserves the attention of anyone who is open to first-rate fiction about war, journalism and the dark, dangerous worlds called Pakistan and Afghanistan','Fesperman offers a level of cultural and political nuance not always found in adventure thrillers','...a gripping portrayal of shameless media frenzy and hopeless geopolitical gamesmanship... his detailed insider's account of war reporting will be catnip for news junkies','...bleak and gritty, but thoroughly believable','A first-rate geopolitical yarn... Fesperman combines his strong eye for detail with bleak film-noir cynicism','The violence level is high, and rendered so convincingly that at times I felt queasy. Fortunately for introspective readers, the violence is leavened by searing insights into human nature... I knew I could not sleep until finishing it','...a convincing, accurate thriller...this book is worth reading if only for the passage where the hero, Skelly, glimpses Osama Bin Laden at a public hanging; the scene both convinces and frightens'
