The Amateur Spy Book

Dan Fesperman's highly accomplished The Amateur Spy is a salutary reminder that writing as ambitious as this does not always parley into massive sales; while Fesperman’s series of novels have always enjoyed healthy attention from readers (and won unanimously high praise from critics), he is not yet in the category, saleswise, of many a far less gifted writer. But perhaps it’s inevitable: when a writer raises the standards of the thriller novel to something approaching literature (as Fesperman has incontrovertibly done), he will leave behind those seeking more straightforward fare. That’s not to say that the author ever disregards the central tenets of storytelling: the level of excitement engendered by such books as his striking debut Lie in the Dark, The Small Boat of Great Sorrows and his last book, the much-acclaimed The Prisoner of Guantanamo ensured that readers were comprehensively gripped, but Fesperman was simultaneously able to freight in notions of betrayal, loyalty and the dark agencies that shape the fate of nations. That’s very much the case here. One of Fesperman's protagonists, Freeman Lockhart, is working with an old friend, Omar, in Jordan, but he is also in the awkward position of spying on him, reporting back on his friend to an agency investigating Omar's financial situation. At the same time, another act of spying is taking place in Washington, where Aliyah Rahim is watching the behaviour of her husband, a doctor traumatised by the death of their daughter. She is convinced that the distrust of Arab Americans that came into being after 9/11 is responsible. She begins to feel that her husband is in the process of putting together an act of violent retribution -- and the stakes are no less high for Freeman, bought (like her) into an impossible situation in which doing the right thing is by no means straightforward. Fesperman’s experience as a war correspondent – along with his acute political radar -- informs all his books with an intelligence and tension that is rarely found in thriller writers on either side of the Atlantic. Each new book by him seems to match the achievement of the one before, and The Amateur Spy raises the bar even higher for Fesperman. --Barry ForshawRead More