The Prisoner Of Guantanamo

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 stake than anybody is willing to say.

Now, 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.

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
Cover-ups and conspiracies abound in another Dan Fesperman novel inspired by recent world events, The Prisoner of Guant ¡namo. Set in and around the U.S. detention facility at Guant ¡namo Bay, the story follows former Marine and current FBI interrogator Revere Falk, as he is called to investigate the possible murder of an American soldier stationed at Gitmo whose body washed ashore in Cuban territory.

Arabic-speaking interrogator Falk, frustrated with the situation at Gitmo ("too few detainees of real value, too many agencies tussling over the scraps"), is close to a breakthrough with one of his charges, a young Yemeni jihadist who may have invaluable information about al-Qaeda, when the corpse of an American soldier found on Cuban soil turns the base into a suspicion-charged powder keg. Falk's investigation leads him to some startling realizations -- and also puts him directly in the line of fire

Readers interested in current world events -- and especially those who have enjoyed Fesperman's previous novels -- Lie in the Dark (which takes place in war-torn Bosnia) and The Warlord's Son (set in Afghanistan and Pakistan after 9/11) -- will find satisfaction in this book, which is based on facts and insights obtained with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union. According to the acknowledgments, the ACLU employed the Freedom of Information Act to pry loose hundreds of Camp Delta documents that the author used as research. Infused with paranoia, political posturing, and propaganda, this timely thriller is guaranteed to entertain -- and enrage. Paul Goat Allen