I’ve read all of Chris Pavone’s books, including The Expats and The Paris Diversion. All are intriguing and well crafted, but this is his best yet.
Accompanying her recently married husband on a short business trip to Lisbon, Ariel Pryce wakes up in her hotel room to find her husband missing.
The police are less than interested, and so too is the US embassy—until they discover her husband was a former CIA agent.
This plot has so many twists and turns and red herrings it’s hard to keep up.
The characters are intricately drawn, and I found myself constantly reassessing my opinion of each one. Chris Pavone will keep you guessing.
Giles Foden is full of surprises. Best known for his epic tale about Idi Amin’s personal physician, The Last King of Scotland, every book is something new and wonderful.
This book charts the progress of a dirt poor refugee from war torn Congo who falls in with a band of renegade pilots running arms and gold across the borders. He is taught to fly as a cynical bet by one of the pilots, and finds himself drawn into a dangerous cycle.
I’ve enjoyed all of Giles Foden’s work, but this is undoubtedly one of his best books.
A new and disturbing take on the events leading up to 9/11. It tells the story of Mahmoud Yassin, a member of a Hamburg mosque, and a group of radical Islamists plotting something big.
The book is steeped in real life events, and explores the relationships of those in the terror cell and the efforts of an undercover agent who tries to prevent 9/11.
Dan Fersperman’s novels are always well-written and well researched. In particular I also enjoyed The Armsmaker of Berlin and The Small Boat of Great Sorrows from his earlier work.
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
by Mohsin Hamid
I didn’t expect to enjoy this anything like as much as I did.
It is a deeply original novel, related in the style and form of a self-help book. All of the characters are unnamed.
The story is of a nameless Asian who drags himself out of the slums to become filthy rich. Each chapter is a lesson in how he made it, with chapter titles like: ‘Move to the City’, ‘Get an Education’, ‘Don’t Fall in Love’.
Hamid is the author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré
No book recommendations from me would be complete without John le Carré, a staple favourite of mine and much missed.
This is one of his best: In this book le Carré demonstrates a ruthlessness with his characters. Smiley plays second fiddle to the superb Jerry Westerby, a drunken womaniser almost like a deeply flawed James Bond.
It is set in South East Asia where Westerby is a journalist, with highly evocative descriptions of Hong Kong and war-torn Cambodia.
If you want to know what happens after Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – this is it, and it’s cataclysmic.