The Cover Wife

February 1, 2021

Last seen in Safe Houses, CIA agent Claire Saylor here takes center stage while posing as the wife of an academic with an unsettling new interpretation of the Quran's promise to martyrs. Soon, she's crossed paths in Hamburg with young Moroccan �migr� Mahmoud, who's drawn both to radicals at his local mosque and to a Westernized Muslim woman. From Hammett winner Fesperman, claimant to CWA John Creasey and Ian Fleming Steel daggers.

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April 5, 2021
Set in 1999, this gripping if uneven spy thriller from Fesperman (Safe Houses) fictionalizes the story of the terrorist cell in Hamburg, Germany, responsible for the 9/11 attacks. CIA agent Claire Saylor goes undercover, posing as the wife of an academic with an explosive new interpretation of the Koran launching a book at an event in Hamburg. But Saylor’s real job is to understand what the terrorist cell is up to—and she soon discovers other American agents are focused on the same group of Islamists. A parallel plot focused on Mahmoud Yassin, an Arab youth who becomes radicalized and joins the cell, raises the tension. Identities and motives are tantalizingly muddled, and Fesperman, a fine stylist, does a good job portraying the elusive, frustrating nature of espionage, but Saylor, more pawn than leader, doesn’t seem to be the narrative’s obvious fulcrum, and the suspense is undercut by the knowledge that the Hamburg cell succeeded in its mission. With the 20th anniversary of 9/11 looming, this solid effort is worth a look. Agent: Ann Rittenberg, Ann Rittenberg Literary.

May 1, 2021
In late 1999, Paris-based CIA agent Claire Saylor goes to Hamburg to help penetrate an Al-Qaida group whose members include future 9/11 conspirators. Claire, whose defiance of her superiors has made her something of a black sheep at the agency, is handled by Paul Bridger, with whom she had a brief affair during a botched mission in Berlin a decade ago. Her unpromising assignment is to pose as the wife of an American language scholar whose inflammatory new book asserts a key section of the Quran has been misinterpreted--that 72 white raisins, not 72 virgins, await jihadi martyrs. The dumpy professor believes his European book tour is being sponsored by a prestigious think tank and that Claire is there for his security, but the trip has been arranged by the CIA in hopes that his physical presence will draw radicals into the open. At the same time, young Moroccan �migr� Mahmoud Yassin is busy ingratiating himself with radicals from a local mosque. Their leader, known as Amir, is Mohamed Atta. He says he has big plans for Mahmoud. But first the new recruit must prove his mettle by getting rid of Esma, the alluring, Westernized woman who threatens to interfere with plans to send her husband on a suicide mission. Instantly smitten with her, the skittish Mahmoud is caught between a rock and a tantalizing soft place. In withholding key details from the reader early on, Fesperman is cheating a bit. But his follow-up to the exceptional Safe Houses (2018) is a breezy, thoughtful thriller that avoids high drama in favor of quick and ultimately unsettling shots to the system. An absorbing tale of terrorism with a tantalizing what if at its core.

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July 1, 2021
Set in 1999 in Hamburg, Germany, Fesperman's latest finds CIA agent Claire Saylor posing as the wife of a professor whose new book posits an incendiary interpretation of the Qur'an--the Muslim holy book, he argues, actually says that, upon arriving in heaven, martyrs will receive 72 raisins, not virgins. Riding shotgun with a crackpot prof on a book tour isn't Claire's idea of a plum assignment, so when her former lover, Paul Bridger, reveals that he has another task in mind for her, she's all in. A little-known group of jihadists appears to be planning something big, and a new recruit, Mahmoud, who has a secret of his own, could be the weak link. Jumping between Mahmoud's story--he's torn between his devotion to the cause and his attraction to a Westernized Muslim woman--and the internecine rivalries plaguing the FBI and CIA, Fesperman teases out the details of the jihadists' plan (something about American airliners and ""flight school""). We know enough to know what's coming, but Fesperman uses that excruciating dramatic irony superbly, showing once more, as le Carr� did, that spies are often their own worst enemies.

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