Pariah by Dan Fesperman

Pariah by Dan Fesperman

'A delightful blend of humour and high tension — Our Man in Havana for the twenty-first century' Mick Herron

‘Twisty, topical, and often darkly comedic, Pariah is Fesperman at his best' David McCloskey, author of Damascus Station

An adrenaline-fueled thriller about a disgraced comedian turned politician who takes on the role of a lifetime: infiltrating a corrupt Eastern European country to spy on their brutal dictator.

After a humiliating on-set incident, Hal Knight — movie star, comedian and former congressman — retreats to a Caribbean island to drown his career and pride. But when CIA operatives approach him with a wild proposition — to exploit the admiration of Bolrovia’s despot, Nikolai Horvatz — Hal seizes the chance for redemption.

As Horvatz’s guest of honour, Hal faces his greatest acting challenge yet. What begins as simple espionage becomes a deadly battle of wits, with consequences stretching from the palace to Washington.

With Pariah, Dan Fesperman delivers a razor-sharp story of espionage, celebrity and one man’s search for meaning amid power, deception and danger.

‘Deliciously fun. . . Dan Fesperman, wielding a sharp eye for atmospheric detail and a finely tuned ear for comic relief, has proved to be one of the genre’s most exciting contemporary writers. . . . Hal and Pavel are irresistible creations, one man risking his celebrity and chances for redemption, the other his freedom and livelihood.’ Christopher Bollen, New York Times Book Review

Dan Fesperman served as a foreign correspondent for The Baltimore Sun, based in Berlin. His coverage of the siege of Sarajevo led to his debut novel, Lie in the Dark, which won Britain's John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for best first crime novel. Subsequent books have won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller, the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers, the Barry Award for best thriller, and selection by USA Today as the year's best mystery/thriller novel. He lives near Baltimore.