The Prisoner
A Novel
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
An international literary sensation, this chilling thriller “exposes. . . a world so dark that readers will come away terrified” (Wall Street Journal, India).
An American journalist has been kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan, days before the American president is due to visit. Those responsible have promised to execute him on video on Christmas Day. With no other leads, Constantine D’Souza, a Christian police officer, must get his former colleague Akbar Khan, a rogue cop imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, to help track down the journalist. But to do so, he has to navigate the streets of Karachi, where police corruption is a way of life and political motives are never what they seem. Caught between the United Front—the militant ruling party—and the Pakistani Intelligence Agencies, D’Souza is in a race against time to save a man’s life and the honor of the nation.
Modeled on true events, The Prisoner is a fast-paced thriller that brings the byzantine politics and the moral ambiguities of justice in Pakistan to life. With a gritty authenticity based on personal experience, Omar Hamid reveals a society where corruption and extremism are commonplace, and the line between the good guys and the bad guys is never as clear as we would like.
Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
For his sobering debut thriller, Hamid draws on his own experiences as a police officer to plunge the reader headfirst into the murky world of Pakistani politics and justice. Constantine D'Souza, a relatively honest Karachi police officer, finds himself seeking the help of Akbar Khan, an estranged comrade and fellow crusader against imprisoned criminals enjoying political protection, in order to try to rescue Jon Friedland, a kidnapped American journalist. The U.S. is leaning on the Pakistani president for quick action, and the president, in turn, is leaning on military agencies. As D'Souza tries to make sense of the present mess, he thinks back to the events of the past decade, including the late-night police raids and extrajudicial killings that the police resorted to in hopes of reigning in the goons sponsored by the ruling coalitions. Hamid does a good job making D'Souza and his fellow officers sympathetic. One only wishes that the women in the story were more well-rounded.
