by Matt Ruff
First published 2012
Arab Homeland Security agent Mustafa al Baghdadi sits across from a captured suicide bomber in summer 2009. The prisoner insists their world is false. He claims America holds superpower status while Arab nations remain underdeveloped. In the real timeline, he says, American fundamentalists attacked Arab towers on 11/9/2001, not the reverse. Mustafa dismisses this as delusion until a search reveals a New York Times from September 12, 2001, describing the impossible. Other terrorists repeat identical stories. The president demands investigation, but Mustafa discovers competing interests. Gangster Saddam Hussein runs his own inquiry. Senate Intelligence Committee head Osama bin Laden works to suppress the truth. As Mustafa digs deeper into this conspiracy, evidence mounts that his reality might be constructed. The investigation forces him to question everything he knows about his world, where the United Arab States won the War on Terror and occupied Washington. Mustafa must decide whether to accept a comfortable lie or pursue a devastating truth that could shatter his understanding of existence.
Genres: science-fiction, mystery, crime, political-thriller, alternate-history
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: conspiracy, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Arab Nations, New York, United Arab States, Washington
Period: 2001, 2009
432 pages · Hardcover · Harper