The Prisoner of Guantanamo (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) [Paperback]

Dan Fesperman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 10, 2007 | Series: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

When the body of an American soldier is discovered in Cuban waters near the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo, Revere Falk, a former FBI agent, is reassigned from his job interrogating an accused al-Qaeda operative to investigate the soldier’s mysterious death.

Falk soon finds himself in a deadly game of intrigue that stretches from the charged waters of Guantánamo Bay to the polished halls of Washington. Every move Falk makes could be costly, and to make matters worse, a dark figure from his past reappears, brandishing a secret he thought he had safely buried. The Prisoner of Guantánamo is a daring look at life behind the barbed wire of Gitmo and a riveting portrayal of what goes on in the most secret levels of our government.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Veteran foreign correspondent Fesperman taps another timely issue in his fourth topical thriller, zeroing in on the secretive U.S.-operated prison camp for possible terrorists at Guantánamo Bay. The action follows the downfall of translator Revere Falk, an FBI interrogator whose Arabic language skills have put him in high demand and, unfortunately, directly in the line of fire between competing political forces. Falk has been focusing on a Yemeni prisoner with murky links to al-Qaeda, but his questioning sessions get interrupted when the body of an American soldier washes ashore in nearby Cuban territory. Falk is assigned to the investigation, but it quickly becomes apparent that base commanders as well as military higher-ups in Washington, D.C., simply want a quick whitewash job. Falk, however, has already asked too many nosy questions and finds himself cast as a possible scapegoat for a variety of other misdeeds at Gitmo. Despite an occasionally confusing plot and a finale with little punch, Fesperman (The Warlord's Son) does a superb job of explaining the inner workings at Guantánamo, as well as the context for the public outcry about the base. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Dan Fesperman, who researched hundreds of documents and visited Gitmo in 2003, definitely did his homework, and it paid off. Critics uniformly praised the meticulous research that allowed the writer to paint a vivid picture of life at Guantánamo Bay, the United States' troubled history with Cuba, and some of the moral quandaries the U.S. faces in its war on terror. That's the good part. However, as a thriller, many reviewers felt Prisoner came out short; they complained about hackneyed, spy-thriller clichés and an anticlimactic ending. And some of the same critics who enjoyed Fesperman's journalistic perspective would have liked to have seen him delve more deeply into the controversy surrounding the military's interrogation techniques at the detention center. So the book is topical but not topical enough and a thriller that's not quite thrilling.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (July 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400096146
• ISBN-13: 978-1400096145
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #136,211 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars TIMELY TOPIC - ON TARGET READING, July 23, 2006

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Prisoner of Guantánamo (Audio CD)

Baltimore Sun Reporter Dan Fesperman is not only a terrific newsman but a first-rate novelist as well (The Small Boat of Great Sorrows, The Warlord's Son). His stories are as current as this morning's news and while sometimes troubling also thoroughly entertaining.

Our setting is the Guantanamo base or Gitmo, the military originated slang name for this outpost. Gitmo,, as the world knows, is where suspected terrorists are incarcerated and interrogated. Life here doesn't amount to much as the suicide rate makes clear. "There had been five attempts inside the wire in the last two weeks, none successful and more than thirty since the prisoners first arrived."

Revere Falk is a former FBI agent now an interrogator at Gitmo. He qualified for this posting because of his fluency in Arabic, and his desire to keep some secrets in his past. For company he has found a career military woman who shares his assignment.

Routine changes when the body of an American soldier, a reservist who was assigned to Guantanamo, is found on a Cuban beach. It's not long into Falk's investigation of this death before he realizes that what he had hoped to keep secret may be revealed.

There a lot of action, much political maneuvering, and a wrenching picture of what can happen during the war on terror to be found in The Prisoner of Guantanamo plus, in this case, a riveting reading delivered by actor David Colacci.

Highly recommended.

- Gail Cooke

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seeing Guantanamo behind the veil, October 20, 2006

By 

Uncle Sam's son (Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Prisoner of Guantanamo (Hardcover)

Read this book. If you're absolutely convinced the US government is systematically torturing detainees at Gitmo, you won't like the book. The villains will satisfy, because they're representative of the conservative crazies in Washington, but the real way the camps work is the way the protagonist does it. Fesperman does play up the interagency conflict, without communicating that FBI, CIA and military intel folks are looking for different things, and perhaps for artistic purposes doesn't explain that the "other agencies" are minority parts of the real picture.

Read this book. Remember that it's a novel, with a fiction plot played out against a background that is absolutely true to life. The spies and wingnuts and crimes make a good story. The writing style may be disconcerting, the plot is convoluted, the final resolution isn't entirely clean or satisfying, but the book is well worth reading.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars timely deep look at Guantomino Bay, July 12, 2006

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Prisoner of Guantanamo (Hardcover)

The FBI sends Agent Revere Falk to Guantomino Bay as an Arabic translator since he is proficient in communicating in that language. His specific assignment involves a Yemeni prisoner Adnan with questionable ties to al-Qaeda. However, his efforts to break Adnan halts at least for now when the corpse of an American NCO washes onto beach on the Cuban side of the barrier.

Falk is assigned to investigate the death of the reservist sergeant. He quickly learns the victim had been a Michigan banker in his civilian life, but was recently receiving letters from his family involving Cayman Island financial institutions. Pressure mounts on Falk to finish immediately as the military wants this incident to go away. Other demands also rise from a surprising local source that knows of Falk's indiscretions as a young marine years ago. Though he keeps digging, hints of culpability are tossed at him like Improvised Explosive Devices as someone like him must take the fall; rank has its privileges nor will it be those connected.

This is a terrific thriller that provides readers with an insightful look at Gitmo from what seems an insider's perspective. The descriptions are so detailed and powerful Cheney will probably accuse Dan Fesperman of abetting the enemy. However that depth also at times overwhelms the prime investigation plot as the fascination with the prison is the star draw. Fans will appreciate this deep look at Guantomino Bay inside a fine whodunit or perhaps better said is a fine whodunit inside a deep prison tour.

Harriet Klausner