First published 2014
Sophie Kohl has just made the worst mistake of her life. She tells her husband, a diplomat at the American embassy in Hungary, about her affair in Cairo. Minutes later, someone shoots him in the head. Stan Bertolli gets the call in his Cairo CIA office. The voice on the phone belongs to the only woman he ever loved. Sophie wants to know why someone killed her husband. Omar Halawi works Egyptian intelligence and knows the rules of the spy game. Foreign agents feed him information, he returns favors, everyone stays happy. But this diplomat's murder sends shock waves from Hungary to Cairo. American analyst Jibril Aziz understands a rejected CIA operation called Stumbler better than anyone alive. When someone steals the blueprints, only Jibril grasps the true threat. These four people converge in Cairo as secrets spill and loyalties crack. Sophie must navigate a world where she cannot trust anyone, including herself.
Genres: mystery, thriller, action, espionage
Vibes: fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: deception, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Cairo, Hungary
Period: 21st-century
416 pages · Hardcover · Minotaur Books