The Good Son Synopsis
The Agent: In the mountain fastness of the Hindu Kush a deadly game of deception and intrigue is entering its final phase. At its heart, a man known only as the Engineer. The Analyst: In the subterranean corridors of Washington an ambitious young NSA operative receives an intercept that confirms her agency's worst fears.
But she's not convinced. She thinks it's a trap. The Mother: In a fortified village high above the Swat Valley, a hostage awaits execution.
She can't out-fight her captors, but can she out-think them? Can she get into their heads before she loses hers? The Son: On the other side of the world, a Special Forces soldier in a clandestine branch of the American military plans a daring rescue operation.
But to save his mother he will have to betray his country. At the intersection of East and West, of faith and fanaticism, of loyalty and betrayal, New York Times bestselling author Michael Gruber has created a provocative, high-calibre thriller where one family's convoluted past is catching up with the present, where nightmares and dreams can become real, where truth and lies can be one and the same.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781848875890 |
| Publication date: |
1st July 2011 |
| Author: |
Michael Gruber |
| Publisher: |
Corvus an imprint of Atlantic Books |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
479 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Crime and Mystery
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Michael Gruber Press Reviews
.. . The brilliant character development and the labyrinthine plot line, not to mention the absorbing history of modern jihadism and the U.S. war on terrorism, make this a provocative thriller that readers won't soon forget. -- PW (Starred)
Is there anything Gruber can't write about? In this richly layered tale, ... there are twists and tension aplenty--ideas, too. If only governments were half as interested in the psychology of violence, maybe war itself might become a work of fiction. -- Booklist (Starred)
Gruber... weaves threads together masterfully while successfully exploring themes of family, duty, loyalty, cultural identity and more, without ever slowing the momentum. Smart, tense and vastly entertaining. -- Kirkus
The Good Son, by Michael Gruber, is one of those few and far between complex, intelligent, and insightful thrillers. The main character, Theo Bailey, is a Special Operations soldier who decides to take a more-or-less unauthorized leave from the Army to locate his mother, Jungian psychotherapist Sonia Bailey Laghari, who's disappeared near Kashmir. Sonia, who'd become a practicing Muslim when she married a Pakistani, was in South Asia to convene a symposium on Conflict Resolution on the Subcontinent: A Therapeutic Approach with a group of fellow pacifists. Ironically--given the title of the symposium--she and her fellow participants, who include an American billionaire, a Jesuit priest, and a Quaker couple, are kidnapped by terrorists, who may or may not have nuclear weapons at their disposal. Unless Theo can figure out what's going on and how to foil the terrorists
plans, his mother is doomed. At worst, the terrorists will use the nuclear devices
; at best, Sonia and the rest will die by beheading. Because you're immediately sucked into the intricate and page-turning plot, this is a good novel for a long plane flight; but readers who are looking for a thriller with a strong philosophical subtext--the sort of novel t
About Michael Gruber
Michael Gruber was born in New York in 1940 and attended Columbia University where he studied English.
In 1984 his cousin, Robert Tanenbaum, a successful trial lawyer, called him from his offices in Los Angeles asking him to look at the first hundred pages of a book he had written at the request of the publishing house Franklin Watts (now part of Scholastic). He says "I called him, and I said, 'This is unsalvageable. It's not a novel, it has no characters, no plot, nothing.'"
In return for half the advance, Gruber rewrote the novel, they renegotiated the contract and went into business. This arrangement continued for 14 books. Gruber says he created the characters and the novels based on stories Tanenbaum told him, or transcripts of cases Tanenbaum had worked on. However, Gruber's credit was limited to a thank you on the acknowledgements page.
When Gruber realized that he would never get cover credit for his work with Tanenbaum he started writing The Witch's Boy in 1996, but was unable to find a publisher. So he started to write Tropic of Night. Tropic of Night is set in Miami, Long Island and West Africa and tells the story of a series of ritualistic murders that sweep Miami. The book has strong supernatural elements, although Gruber points out, 'there is no supernatural. It's all part of the universe, although the universe is queerer than we suppose.
He lives in Seattle in an old fishing bungalow overlooking Lake Washington and Mercer Island, with his wife who is an artist.
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