Dan Fesperman, The Amateur Spy

The Amateur Spy

Dan Fesperman

Knopf, Mar 2008, $24.95

ISBN: 9781400044672

After years working in the world's most dangerous spots as an aid worker, fifty-five year old Freeman Lockhart retires. He and his thirty-something Bosnian spouse Mila take residence on the island of Karos in the Aegean Sea.

However, on their very first night, three home invaders abduct Freeman. They demand he do their bidding. He is to go to Jordon to spy on a former aid co-worker Omar al-Baroody. If he refuses, they will publicly destroy him and his wife by revealing his darkest secret involving his spouse when they worked in Africa. Stunned, he travels to Amman while in Washington, D.C. Dr. Abbas Rahim plans a terrorist attack that ties back to Freeman's Jordanian mission.

THE AMATEUR SPY is a superb espionage thriller and the audience will show their appreciation by reading it in one entranced sitting. Freeman is terrific as the title character blackmailed into a scenario that is out of his skill level but failure is unacceptable as he knows the price. Fans will sympathize and root for him while watching him bungle his way through a dangerous mission in which he knows no matter what he does someone will die.

Harriet Klausner