Book description
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.
Dan 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.
