The Poet Game [Hardcover]

Salar Abdoh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2001

In the wake of the first World Trade Center bombing, New York City is the center of an intricate web of betrayals and double-crosses in the shadowy world of Muslim radicals. Sami Amir arrives in Brooklyn via Iran, and into a world of militants, arms suppliers, and spies. He is a counter-intelligence agent from a branch of the Iranian Ministry of Security. The son of an American mother, he has always stood apart from his fellow men. Now, because of his background, he is sent to New York to investigate rumored terrorist plots that are to culminate with further violence around Christmas and New Year's, two weeks away.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Sami Amir, the protagonist of Salar Abdoh's debut novel, The Poet Game, is hardly your run-of-the-mill spook. The son of an American mother and an unknown Iranian father, raised in a Catholic orphanage outside of Tehran, and fluent in English, he has, until recently, made his living as a translator for an operation known as "the Office." Sami's employer is an ultrasecret organization that monitors the actions of the Iranian military and intelligence services in an effort to undercut the influence of hard-line Islamic extremists in the government. To this end, it has sent Sami into the field--to New York, in fact--to thwart an act of terrorism.

Pretending to be an operative for an organization known as Section 19, our man from Tehran must infiltrate a bizarre world of Islamic militants, mad-bomber wannabes, reluctant middlemen, and one or two guys who might even be the real deal. Between the Libyans, Palestinians, Pakistanis, and odd-ball American black Moslems, it's getting hard to keep track of the players--and their differing agendas--without a scorecard. Then Sami's contact from the Office shows up and confuses matters even more. An American, a woman, a poet and part-time stripper--and possibly a double agent--Ellena is not what he was expecting. As Sami penetrates deeper into the labyrinthine world of Middle Eastern politics, he is also drawn reluctantly into a love affair with her--a relationship he characterizes as "two failed poets trying to get it right in the wrong trade."

Salar Abdoh is aiming high with The Poet Game--a spy story that is more than just a thriller, a noir novel that transcends pulp fiction. If, at times, the plot becomes overly convoluted and suffers from one double-double-cross too many, Abdoh's elegant prose and deft characterization make up for it. Sami might be a failed poet, but he is no romantic when it comes to his profession: "For what was any of this but another means of making a living--no different really than performing open-heart surgery or collecting garbage at night." And in the end, it is this sad, clear-eyed vision of himself and his world that makes Sami Amir's fate worth caring about. --Sheila Bright --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Balancing bombing conspiracies and international arms trading with literary allusions and psychological intrigue, this debut spy novel aims high. Sami Amir is an Iranian with an American mother, a Catholic school education and a job as a translator. He is reluctantly pressed into counterintelligence service by a secret Iranian government agency and sent to New York City to infiltrate an Arab terrorist group called Section 19 that seems intent on committing acts of sabotage following the World Trade Center bombing. After a brief internment in a grungy Brooklyn tenement, he finds himself suspended dangerously in a struggle between American and Middle Eastern intelligence forces. He soon falls in love with one of his contacts in the States, an American spy/stripper named Ellena. As their romance progresses, Sami makes some startling discoveries--for starters, Ellena keeps a bomb under her bed--that put their affections to the test. Meanwhile, he manages to survive various attacks by terrorist thugs, striking back on occasion and eventually realizing he has been set up by his own employers. The novel races through a series of atmospheric settings--including a warehouse in Brooklyn, a public garden in the East Village and a political science conference at Columbia University--all sketched with a winning economy of detail. Operatives from a host of Middle Eastern countries are vividly described, too, and Abdoh's dialogue is tight, despite some lapses into self-conscious noir. Sami himself is an unusually sensitive action hero, with an appreciation of literature, an eye for poignant detail and a sentimental side. As he says, he believes he and Ellena are just "failed poets trying to get it right in the wrong trade," and samplings of Ellena's poetry appear throughout. Such attempts to infuse the story with higher meaning sometimes fall flat, but this is nevertheless an entertaining and heart-quickening debut. Agent, Watkins-Loomis. (Feb.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: San Val (April 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1417706759
• ISBN-13: 978-1417706754
• Shipping Information: View shipping rates and policies
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars thoughtfull and intelligent thriller, March 2, 2000

By 

Robert J. Rabel "Mailer fan from way back" (Lexington, KY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Poet Game: A Novel (Hardcover)

In the Poet Game, Sami Amir is an Iranian spy caught between the powers-that-be in Iran, employees of the Libyan government, and United States intelligence services. Everywhere he turns he confronts liars. Though reviewers seem not to have noticed this, the "poet" of the title is a convenient metonym for "liar," as Abdoh spins out his own version of the old Platonic idea that all poets are liars. In this novel all liars are also in their own way poets. Along with "Hunting Down Amanda," "The Poet Game" is the most intelligent thriller to be published in years.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent, politically accurate, & cunningly crafted, March 15, 2000

By 

Edward Myles (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Poet Game: A Novel (Hardcover)

The use of a character that could straddle two worlds was a brilliant idea by S. Abdoh. Although the Iranian and American political philosophies have been at odds for the last two decades, Sami Amir's character and the suspenseful plot of this novel created surprisingly plausible twist of events. A very enjoyable and politically insightful novel.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliance, October 19, 2001

By 

January Dylan (Santa Monica, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Poet Game: A Novel (Paperback)

You often read the back of a literary thriller and see that, yet once again, the author of the book has been compared to the great John Le Carre or even the greater Graham Greene. Usually I take such comparisons with a grain of salt. But being a fan of the genre, I cannot dismiss such comparisons and end up reading the works, often much to my disappointment. There was no disappointment with The POET GAME. This literary thriller pretty much shatters all the boundaries of the genre I have ever come across, and I've come across quite a few in my time. The simplicity of the language and ease with which the story moves is like a contrapuntal dance to a backdrop of terror and betrayal beyond anyone's imagination. The author, Salar Abdoh, knows the territory too well. I don't know if he's been there and done that or if he has access to sources few, if any, readers and even writers of this type of book have. If you want to know the psychology behind what just took place in America on September 11th of 2001 you'd better read this book. I've read many books by other writers who thought they were giving a portrayal of what the men on the other end of the war look like. Well, those authors often failed where Mr. Abdoh succeeds. The book is a tragedy in waiting. I don't want to give more away. I read the first page where the author was describing the different personality traits of various Middle Eastern operatives, and I thought: wow! this guy seems like he's come right out of the trenches of southern Lebanon or some place similar. He may or may not have, but the portrayal he gives is chilling, stupendously written and far above the inanities of your usual thriller with too much gadgetry and not enough psychology. If there is any shortcoming to the work it's that I would have liked the book to go on another hundred pages. I didn't want it to end. But end it did, on a note that well ... I don't want to give the story away.