Pariah

'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.



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.