The Warlord's Son: Summary and book reviews of The Warlord's Son by Dan Fesperman, plus links to an excerpt from The Warlord's Son and a biography of Dan Fesperman.
The Warlord's Son A Novel
by Dan Fesperman
Hardcover: Sep 2004,
336 pages.
Paperback: Sep 2005,
336 pages.
His last novel, The Small Boat of Great Sorrows, was hailed as "a
relentlessly crackling mystery and adventure tale" (The Baltimore Sun)
and "a new standard for war-based thrillers" (Los Angeles Times). In
this electrifying new thriller, Dan Fesperman takes us to present-day
Afghanistan–the global capital of death long before it became a battleground
for America–where the fates of an American journalist and a Pakistani
translator become dangerously intertwined with the fortunes of warlords, spies,
and dubious corporate interests.
A burned-out war correspondent hoping for a last hurrah in Afghanistan, Skelly
arrives on the Afghan border just as American bombs begin falling on the ruling
Taliban. Seeking the scoop of a lifetime as witness to the capture of "the
biggest fish of them all," he links up with an exiled warlord's quixotic
expedition. Guiding Skelly's way is Najeeb, a tribal Pakistani with his own
objective–U.S. visas for his girlfriend and himself, promised by Pakistani
intelligence if he acts as an informant.
A harrowing crossing into Afghanistan is only the beginning of trouble for the
two men. Their journey quickly escalates into a race for their lives as they are
pulled into a vortex of intrigue, betrayal, and violence. Finally, only their
loyalty to each other holds out the possibility of survival for either of them.
Fast-paced, timely, and galvanizing from first to last.
Patrick Anderson - The Washington Post
The Warlord's Son offers a brilliant picture of what might be called the
journalistic condition -- specifically, the joys, absurdities and horrors of the
foreign correspondent's life -- and it will teach you more than you ever
expected to know about tribesmen for whom violence is a given and betrayal is an
art … [it} deserves the attention of anyone who is open to first-rate fiction
about war, journalism and the dark, dangerous worlds called Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
Entertainment Weekly
A first-rate geopolitical yarn . . . Fesperman combines his strong eye for
detail with bleak film-noir cynicism, managing to make plot twists that could
have felt contrived seem depressingly believable.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
A thrilling odyssey into Afghanistan during the waning days of Taliban rule .
. . a kind of post-modern Heart of Darkness.
Baltimore Sun
Compelling . . . I knew I could not sleep until finishing it.
Booklist - Alan Moores
Plot-driven fans might not
see this slowly paced book to the end, but Fesperman offers a level of cultural
and political nuance not always found in adventure thrillers.
Library Journal - Jane Jorgenson
Caught up in events that are both monumental and intensely personal, reporter
Stan Skelly Kelly and his fixer, Najeeb, cross from Pakistan into
war-torn Afghanistan.
Publishers Weekly
Capture, escape and shocking revelations
finally save one man and condemn the other in this gripping portrayal of
shameless media frenzy and hopeless geopolitical gamesmanship.
Kirkus Reviews
Bleak and gritty, but thoroughly believable, especially
the reporting scenes.
The Economist
In The Warlord's Son, Dan Fesperman, an American foreign
correspondent who covered the war in Afghanistan, succeeds in writing 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.
Sunday Telegraph
A 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 characterization, produce an utterly compelling thriller and
quite simply the best I've read all year.
Larry Gandle,author of Deadly Pleasures
Dan Fesperman has written two superb novels concerning war-torn Yugoslavia
from two different perspectives of time . . . Lie in the Dark won the
Creasey Award for best first crime novel and The Small Boat of Great Sorrows won
the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller. Now he returns in by far
and away his best work to date. In a sense it is sweeping in grandeur like Doctor
Zhivago, yet intimate enough to be reminiscent of a Graham Greene and
as a thriller intelligent enough to be in the same ranks of John LeCarre.
However, I predict Dan Fesperman will ultimately equal them in fame writing his
own type of stylistic war novels. This one is a masterpiece.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by mhd from a student point of view I am a 10 grade student and read this book rather quickly. I found all parts of the book very interesting and also think most of it is true. As much as I like this book and thought it was fast moving and very mind-grasping I thought there were... Read More
With so much focus on
Afghanistan's troubles over the last quarter decade it's easy to
forget that this is a country with a long and cultured
past. At a time when most of Western Europe was wallowing
in the Dark Ages, following the fall of the Roman Empire,
Afghanistan's location made it a pivotal meeting point between
the countries of the East and West. Although most of the
cultural treasures from that era have either been destroyed or
have disappeared from the country, some have been recovered,
including a cache of 20,000 golden objects which were thought to
have been lost. National Geographic had an interesting
article on the 'Bactrian gold' and other Afghan artifacts in
their
December
2004 issue.
At once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.
A combination of investigative journalism and historical overview that emphasizes the Chechens' role as the long-oppressed victims of Russian imperialism.
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A bold, mesmerizing novel about the woman known as "Typhoid Mary," the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the burgeoning metropolis of early twentieth century New York.
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Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
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Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
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Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Booklist - Alan Moores
Larry Gandle,author of Deadly Pleasures
of 5
by mhd
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