The Warlord's Son

Dan Fesperman's novel, The Warlord's Son, is a capitivating story of intrigue, bravery, loyalty and betrayal. His writing style has you smelling the smells, hearing the cacophony of sounds and tasting the dust of Pakistan and the Pakistani-Afghani Tribal areas. Stanley J. Kelly, a.k.a. Skelly, a worn out foreign correspondent now stuck covering local news events for his newspaper, is rescued by the events of 9/11. His editors, desperate for understanding the anger at America, dispatch Skelly to Pakistan giving him one last chance to get back in the game by maybe scoring the big story. When you don't know the language, the power players, or the terrain you get yourself a "fixer", someone who knows how to get things done. Skelly hires his "fixer", Najeeb, but Najeeb comes with a past, the disowned son of a tribal warlord, a secret love, and the interest of the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency. They travel with a warlord's group who believes he is returning to power and has the support of other warlords - or does he? Allegiances in the Tribal areas change from day to day - which day is today? Even the two Americans he knows in the area may or may not be what they seem. In a region where betrayal is an art form, whom do you trust and is loyalty enough? Start this riveting book at your own risk, you will find it hard to put down.

A timely novel considering the Coalition hunt for Bin Laden and his terrorist cronies in the ungoverned territories called the Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Stanford J. Kelly, aka Skelly, embarks on a last attempt to make it big as a journalist covering the U.S. ramp-up immediately following 9/11. Najeem, a Pakistani college educated in the U.S. but raised in the Tribal Areas, serves as Skelly's guide/translator/facilitator, but has his own dark past and agenda. Najeem's girlfriend/lover, Daliya, serves as a reminder of the brutal treatment fundamental Islam reserves for the female members of their societies. All in all, a fascinating tale that reveals the complexities of a culture Skelly is wholly unprepared to cover, much less survive on his own. One asks if Western journalists are as naive as Fesperman portrays - most likely they are as he ought to know... Fesperman's credentials and the depth of his narrative are clear indicators of his own experience as a journalist as well as obvious research and first-hand knowledge of a region that has as many twists and complexities as the plot of The Warlord's Son. Perhaps the only loose thread in Fesperman's novel is the ending, which I won't reveal here, but merely observe that the last few pages seem more like a convenient wrap-up for the author or perhaps a cheap shot at U.S. government agencies and their employees. Fesperman appears to have far more experience with the locals than his own countrymen. A great read for anyone interested in learning more about Pakistan, Afghanistan, war journalists, and why western-style democracy is unlikely to flourish anytime soon in the hard core fundamentalist and tribal regions of the Earth.

An amazing novel. As a news and historical junkie, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the situation the USA is now confronted with in Afghanistan. Often, nonfiction books give a pretty good overview of a country or a region. Very occasionally good fiction does better. This book is not better, but the best. From the first page "The Warlord's Son" gets the reader into the grit and grime of the nebulose mountains and passes between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Skelly, an aging war correspondent, wants to get into Afghanistan in the weeks after 9/11 and enlists the aid of Najeed, a minor warlorld's estranged son. The two barely make it across the border before disaster happens. In a way, the novel is a metaphor of crossing cultural frontiers, with Najeed bound with the ropes of honor and blood, Skelly a determined fool. I won't tell you any more about the the plot. Read it for yourself. Previous reviewers have compared the author, Dan Fesperman, to Graham Greene and John LeCarre, with justice.

The Warlord's Son is a highly enjoyable suspense tale set in Pakistan and Afghanistan just after 9/11. Stan Kelly, called Skelly, is an American war correspondent past his prime who has taken one last assignment in an attempt to write the ONE BIG STORY of his career. He hires a "fixer" -- the local person who knows the ins and outs of the culture and can also serve as translator -- called Najeeb, the title character, who is the black sheep son of a Pashtun warlord. Between Skelly and Najeeb they find themselves in a labyrinth of plots and sub-plots, all revolving around who will control Afghanistan. Skelly wants the story. For Najeeb, things are more complicated. While both characters are very well drawn, Najeeb is of particular interest in that he is trapped between the world of his childhood in the wild Tribal Areas of Pakistan and the world of his young adult life, which includes college in the U.S. and a relationship with a Muslim woman who is struggling to find a place in society where she can be both faithful to her religion and to her aspiration to be self-directed. The book feels very authentic in terms of plot, character development and setting, with an evocative sense of place that helped me better appreciate the connections that people have to their ancestral lands. Dan Fesperman is very good at illustrating the complexities of the social and political situation along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. At one point as I was reading along, I was struck by the realization of just how little we Americans understand the terms of life in that part of the world, and how we probably never will get a real clue. It is very far away indeed from places most of us comprehend. That's not to say that I didn't empathize with the novel's characters; on the contrary I did. Fesperman is exceptionally talented at helping his characters convey the human emotions we all share, and at challenging his readers to inspect once again the opinions we have formed in the wake of 9/11 and subsequent events. Plus, The Warlord's Son works as a first-rate adventure story. I have not so thoroughly enjoyed a novel since reading The Kite Runner a few months ago and highly recommend The Warlord's Son to anyone who likes good stories that make you question your assumptions, and your privledge.

Dan Fesperman has written two superb novels concerning war torn Yugoslavia from two different perspectives of time. They were, in essence, detective novels. Yet, they revealed a writer with enormous gifts-one who could create astoundingly realistic and sympathetic characters and place them in a setting few in the western hemisphere have ventured during wartime. They depict an unforgettable hell where residents cower in fear and just traveling to the market could end a life by a stray bullet from a distant sniper. Dan Fesperman has not been ignored, however. The Crime Writers Association of Great Britain have honored both books. LIE IN THE DARK won the Creasey Award for best first crime novel and THE SMALL BOAT OF GREAT SORROWS won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller. Now he returns in by far and away his best work to date. In a sense it is sweeping in grandeur like DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, yet intimate enough to be reminiscent of a Graham Greene and as a thriller intelligent enough to be in the same ranks of John LeCarre. However, I predict Dan Fesperman will ultimately equal them in fame writing his own type of stylistic war novels. This one is a masterpiece. American journalist, Stanford J. Kelly AKA Skelly, is ready to try one more time to bring home the big story. He has covered all the major hotspots of the last twenty years and now, just after 9/11, he travels to Pakistan in an effort to enter Afghanistan with an exiled warlord trying to reclaim power. In order to succeed, however, he needs a "fixer" or translator not only of the language but of the culture, the people and the landscape. The individual he hires is Najeeb, educated at an American University but due to a betrayal is a pariah to his family. Najeeb wants only to emigrate to the US with Daliya, his girlfriend, but the door appears to be shutting tight. In spite of these personal problems, Najeeb wants to do a good job for Skelly but protecting him gets more and more difficult the deeper he ventures into the wilds of Afghanistan. To understand the complex cultures of this untamed part of the world, a reader would be hard pressed to find a book that so immerses the reader fully into this repressed society. It is a scary place- both unyielding and difficult for a westerner to comprehend. It is easy to see why Bin Laden has not yet been found. It should be required reading for students of modern American History and for anyone who wants to appear informed about culture in this untamed part of the world. All of Dan Fesperman's talents of realistic characters, forbidding landscapes and portrayals of distant wars are in full evidence here. Once a reader is brought into the hot dusty realm of the story of these brave souls, it will be hard to let go. Easily the best novel of the year thus far.