The Prisoner of Guantanamo

By: Dan Fesperman

Dan Fesperman’s award-winning novels have transported listeners to the heart of some of the world’s most volatile places: Yugoslavia during the Balkan Wars in Lie in the Dark and The Small Boat of Great Sorrows (“A new standard for war-based thrillers”—Los Angeles Times), and Afghanistan during the last days of the Taliban in The Warlord’s Son (“A first-rate geopolitical yarn”—Entertainment Weekly). Now he turns his sights closer to home—to the secretive, overheated world of Guantánamo—to give us a galvanizing new thriller.

Revere Falk—FBI veteran, Arabic speaker—is an interrogator at “Gitmo,” assigned to a “hold-out,” a Yemeni prisoner who may have valuable information about al-Qaeda. But these duties are temporarily suspended when the body of an American soldier is found washed ashore in Cuban territory. No American has ever turned up dead on the wrong side of the fence before. Suddenly, Cold War tension is back, and Falk finds himself at the heart of it when he’s put in charge of the investigation into the death. Almost immediately he senses an unusual level of interest in the proceedings: from his commander, from the Cubans, and from the various factions of the military. And when the Defense Intelligence Agency unexpectedly sends its own team to “reinforce” the investigation, Falk understands that there is much more at play than anybody is willing to admit. He is drawn into a game of evasion and pursuit, a game whose stakes spike dangerously when a figure from his past reappears—someone who knows secrets about him that he had hoped were buried forever.

An intricately layered, blistering tale of subterfuge and deception at the highest, most hidden levels of the government, and in the most intimate, and vulnerable, moments of individual lives, The Prisoner of Guantánamo is as timely and razor sharp in its depiction of life—and death—at Gitmo as it is unstoppably suspenseful.

©2006 Dan Fesperman (P)2025 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Heart-breakingly believable . . . Falk is a character of depth and fascination.” –Chicago Tribune

“[A] tantalizing, timely thriller . . . The high point is a frightening nighttime escape on the open sea, a segment that the author relates with passion and terror . . . [Fesperman] gives us a highly detailed and useful picture of Gitmo and its denizens: the pervasive military infrastructure that determines the daily rhythms of life, the daily turf battles between the competing interrogation teams and their acronym-laden sponsors, and the always looming presence of Fidel Castro’s Cuba . . . You should enjoy reading Falk’s quick-witted escapades . . . Powerful.” –Washington Post Book World

“A brilliant, gorgeously written story of hope, betrayal and innocence lost. If George Smiley defined the Cold War spy, then Revere Falk and The Prisoner of Guantánamo are the opening chapter of the spy novel for the 21st century. Those who thought espionage fiction was dead have only to read this book (and its predecessor, The Warlord’s Son) to realize that Dan Fesperman has the same great talent as John le Carré . . . Fesperman is so good at plot construction I didn't even see the twist coming. His characters, even the minor ones, are fully realized . . . I couldn’t put this book down the first time I read it, or even the second. In fact, I want to read it again. That’s the way it is with really wonderful spy novels . . . Extraordinary.” –Toronto Globe and Mail

“[Fesperman] is one of the best writers of intelligent thrillers based on contemporary events working today. So, even though headlines about Guantánamo keep coming, The Prisoner of Guantánamo hasn’t lost any of its edge and urgency . . . What makes the novel work is the attention to detail . . . He gives us the physical layout [but] he's even better at creating the emotional atmosphere, the tedium and the tension, the paranoia and the boredom . . . Observant, thoughtful, witty and concerned, [Fesperman] has robustly adapted the thriller to the age of the GWOT.” –Baltimore Sun