THE AMATEUR SPY
Dan Fesperman
Knopf
Thriller
ISBN: 9781400044672

THE AMATEUR SPY is one of those novels that at various points leaves a reader torn between rapidly turning the pages and throwing the book across the room. By turns intriguing and confounding, it reflects our time and our world --- neither of which are pretty --- in a story that is ultimately intriguing but requires one too many leaps of faith.

Freeman Lockhart wants nothing more than to retire from his humanitarian aid work and withdraw from the world with his wife Mila to a small, almost pastoral Greek island. Their idyllic existence never really gets off the ground; their first night on the island is interrupted by three men who subject Freeman to a stiff-legged recruitment pitch for spying on Omar al-Baroody, a Palestinian with whom Freeman had worked and subsequently befriended several years before. Omar is ostensibly involved in a fund-raising project in Jordan to build a much-needed hospital, but may or may not be tied to something more nefarious. The prod for Freeman’s cooperation is blackmail; he has a secret that he has long kept from Mila, supposedly for her own good, and her continued ignorance is the coin that his mysterious recruiters are willing to pay.

Freeman is easily --- almost too easily --- able to insert himself into Omar’s fund-raising operation, where he finds that his old friend is indeed involved in things above and beyond humanitarian causes. Yet Freeman himself is in way over his head; he is caught between factions, governmental and otherwise, with his every move scrutinized by shadowy figures who seem to be operating at cross-purposes to each other.

Meanwhile, in a Washington, D.C. suburb, Abbas Rahim, a prominent Palestinian-American surgeon and his wife Aliyah continue working through the grief occasioned by the accidental death of their daughter one year ago. Abbas blames, somewhat improbably, the post-9/11 posture of the United States government and, inspired by a radio report of a terrorist act abroad, cooks up a bloody revenge of his own. Aliyah, horrified by her husband’s plot, is determined to stop him. So she travels to Jordan for the apparent purpose of acquiring the expertise that Abbas needs to carry out his misguided revenge. Aliyah finds, however, that her actions have only served to clear the way for Abbas to execute his plan. Aliyah’s path barely, almost imperceptibly, intersects with Freeman’s. Yet it may or may not be enough to prevent the occurrence of Abbas’s plan, which, if successful, will dramatically change the complexion of world politics.

Dan Fesperman’s writing continues to be compelling. But where THE AMATEUR SPY gets snagged is upon the motives of its principal characters. The event that Freeman so desperately wishes to keep secret from his wife (which I am deliberately not revealing), while a horrible one, ultimately has little to do with their actions and everything to do with those of the terrorists. It is a stretch, to say the least, to hold the Lockharts accountable in any way. The irony of the book --- Freeman, pressed into service to spy on a relatively innocent player, inadvertently uncovers a much larger, more significant plot and cannot get anyone to listen --- is almost lost in the conclusion, which keeps several loose threads dangling in the wind.

Perhaps that is the point of the novel: in the Middle East, nothing is resolved or concluded --- there is merely a succession of events. The ultimate strength of THE AMATEUR SPY, however, is the manner in which Lockhart, a fish out of water, manages to survive in a very dangerous land.

   --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

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