The Messenger
A Novel
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- 4,49 €
Description de l’éditeur
In a world of heightened threat levels, sleeper cells, and unseen enemies, one novel explores the war on terrorism with harrowing suspense . . . and deep humanity.
Daria emerges from a refugee camp a believer. She has lost everything, witnessed the unthinkable, and committed herself to a mission with a deadly conclusion. Indoctrinated, trained, and given a ticket to New York, she blends in, posing as an ambitious journalist—an “arrow” hoping to hit too many targets to count.
Dr. Sam Watterman is recruited too. Falsely accused and disgraced in the anthrax inquiries after 9/11, he is no longer a believer in causes. But the government that ruined his career now demands his expertise to locate a threat putting millions of Americans in peril.
In a country that fights wars on foreign soil but remains terrified of the cataclysm at home, Sam strives toward redemption and Daria desperately seeks both rebellion and enlightenment. Their lives will intersect at a place that will test their faith and make them each question what it means to have something worth dying for.
With a riveting plot that spans sixteen fraught, compelling days, Stephen Miller’s dazzling novel of literary suspense brings the war to a landscape both familiar and vulnerable: the America we call home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Miller's latest (after The Woman in the Yard) is a timely bioterror thriller. Raised in an Iraqi refugee camp, Daria joins a terrorist organization that sends her off to boarding school in Florence, Italy. She lives an outwardly normal life, but eventually is summoned to Berlin, where she is infected with smallpox and put on a plane for New York, her mission to infect the city. Meanwhile, scientist Sam Watterman, whose career and finances were ruined after being pegged as a suspect in the 2001 anthrax mailings, emerges from retirement to help the FBI. He goes back to work for the money and the pleasure of sparring with an old rival who is now director of the CDC. Chapters dealing with Daria's sleeper years defy clich and bring her complex situation to life, but after she ditches her cover and begins to wander, Daria's sections lose their urgency. Additionally, since Daria is part of a larger plot, Watterman doesn't even know he's looking for her until halfway through the book, which further saps momentum. The novel's premise is terrifying, and Daria is a memorable character, but the execution falls short.
