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The Prisoner of Guantanamo |  |
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The Prisoner of Guantanamo | |
The Prisoner of Guantanamo fixes its attention largely on Falk, starting at the moment we first meet him in an interrogation session with Adnan. A 15-year FBI veteran, Falk is spending his second stint at Gitmo: He was posted there as a young Marine 12 years earlier, at a time when his off-duty exploits led him to meet a shadowy figure who will re-emerge during Falk''s present travails.
In an organization of partners, buddies and specialty teams such as the FBI, Falk is a classic loner. He reveals little about his past or his family. He is now dating Pam, a military interrogator and one of the few unattached women at the base. His work/play routine -- interrogating Adnan and wooing Pam -- is shattered when a military interrogator is discovered dead under mysterious circumstances on the Cuban-run side of the island. Falk is assigned to investigate the case, leaving him caught up in tensions from both the Cold War and the war on terrorism.
While he carries out his assignments with diligence, Falk shows little discomfort with Gitmo or the grimly regimented system as he finds it. He is not one of those U.S. officials writing concerned memos to Washington about alleged abuse of the detainees. Indeed, Falk seems somewhat intimidated by Gitmo, a military-dominated operating environment in which his law-enforcement badge is not always a trump card.
Not long after he is assigned to investigate the possible murder of the U.S. soldier, three senior officials -- from the departments of State, Defense and Homeland Security -- fly in from Washington with vaguely defined agendas and, perhaps, vested interests in the investigation''s outcome. Falk reckons that the trio speaks for power brokers in the Capitol. The ensuing action of the novel is dominated by angry confrontations, ambushes and slippery tactics among the members of this team and Falk -- so dominated, in fact, that the trio''s individual roles begin to blur. Still, a neat sense of conspiratorial tension pervades the atmosphere, created through overheard, sometimes obscure fragments of conversation. Falk and his monitors employ an impressive array of low-tech but effective espionage techniques against one another as they pursue their conflicting objectives. Fesperman''s use of spy tradecraft is good -- even creative -- and never more elaborate than the situation calls for. The high point is a frightening nighttime escape on the open sea, a segment that the author relates with passion and terror, feelings not always present elsewhere in the narrative.
Even though the pace sometimes flags, Fesperman, a Baltimore Sun reporter and novelist, gives us a highly detailed and useful picture of Gitmo and its denizens: the pervasive military infrastructure that determines the daily rhythms of life, the daily turf battles between the competing interrogation teams and their acronym-laden sponsors (DIA, CIA, FBI and so on), and the always looming presence of Fidel Castro''s Cuba. To help readers keep it all straight, a "Guantanamo Glossary" and a sketch map of Gitmo appear in the front of the novel.
Strangely, though, The Prisoner of Guantanamo stops short at the doors to the cells. Is deliberate and systemic physical abuse of prisoners going on? Falk sheds light on the treatment of at least one prisoner, Adnan, but Falk''s relationship with the detainee seems completely at odds with what most of us fear is actually occurring there. You should enjoy reading Falk''s quick-witted escapades on the island as he eludes the Washington team and others who would derail his investigation, but, like me, you may find yourself asking why Fesperman could not have taken on some of the darker issues of that infamous place.
Reviewed by Peter Earnest
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. 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.
From AudioFile
It''s hard to know if the suspects held in the cells at Guantanamo, Cuba, are members of terrorist cells, or innocents swept up in the post 9/11 frenzy. In his story Dan Fesperman sneaks us inside for a peek behind the walls. When a "Gitmo" soldier drowns miles from where he should be, the question is who''s responsible--a terrorist, the Cubans, American spies, or a jealous husband? Listeners will be riveted. Narrator David Colacci can get hearts racing or lull them into a deceiving calm. He delivers a respectable Cuban in one sentence and a New England lobsterman in the next, never leaving the listener at a loss. M.S. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
From Booklist
In this alleged thriller, the fourth novel by Baltimore Sun journalist Fesperman, the excitement is strictly cerebral. Arabic-speaking FBI special agent Revere Falk is working as an interrogator at the highly secretive government prison located in the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, aka "Gitmo." His latest assignment is a young Yemeni prisoner who is suspected of having valuable information about al-Qaeda activities. In the midst of his interrogation efforts, he is pulled away to assist in the investigation of the death of an American soldier whose body has washed ashore onto Cuban territory. As he begins his investigation, Revere finds himself stymied from all sides, and a secret from his past returns to threaten him. Although the insider''s view of the Gitmo prison base is engaging, the stock characters (including the usual backbiting government bureaucrats and arrogant military officers) along with a confusing, lackluster plot do not contribute too much of an exciting read. But expect demands based on publicity. Michael Gannon
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
“A tantalizing, timely thriller. . . . Powerful.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“A superb spy thriller worthy of sharing shelf space with the novels of John le Carré and Ken Follett.”
—USA Today
“Fast-paced. . . . A page-turning thriller.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Heart-breakingly believable . . . Falk is a character of depth and fascination.”
—Chicago Tribune
