Starred review from March 3, 2014
Screenwriter and producer Hayes (Payback) makes his fiction debut with an exceptional thriller that boasts an utterly credible narrator who has had so many covert identities he can barely remember his original name. Soul-weary Scott Murdoch (aka the Pilgrim) has retired from the top echelon of ultrasecret espionage, but duty and faith in the human spirit call him back into service. A lone-wolf Middle Eastern native whom the Pilgrim code names “the Saracen” has a sure-fire bioterrorist plot to destroy the United States. In the cinematic chase that ensues, the action traverses the globe, from the Oval Office to the dusty trails of Afghanistan, each scene fleshed out in the smallest resonating detail (e.g., a Down syndrome child’s laughter, the endless nausea of waterboarding). Like many pilgrimages, this one is painfully long and packed with unexpected menace, its glimpses of the goal fitful and far between, but readers will agree that this journey of body and soul is well worth the effort. Agent: Jay Mandel, WME.
October 1, 2015
This hefty debut from longtime screenwriter Hayes was 2014's most memorable thriller, filled with cinematic twists and turns. Retired CIA operative Pilgrim connects a seemingly random murder in a New York hotel room to the case of a young, brilliant Saudi doctor who synthesizes an incurable strand of smallpox with designs of releasing it in the United States as a biological weapon. (LJ 1/1/14)
Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from July 28, 2014
Screenwriter Hayes’s action-packed debut thriller introduces Scott Murdoch, a burnt-out, upper-echelon spy known as Pilgrim, who is drawn out of retirement when a Middle Eastern terrorist launches a devastating biological attack on the U.S. The voice that British-trained American actor Ragland uses is, on first hearing, surprisingly soft and youthful for a brilliant, world-weary ex-agent. But as the story progresses on a twisty, neatly crafted journey from the U.S. to Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and, eventually, Turkey, this almost-nerdy narration develops a harder, determined edge. There is a particularly grueling, gruesome sequence in which Murdoch is battered, beaten, and waterboarded, nearly to death. Ragland turns the spy’s very human reaction to the torture into a performance piece. An Atria/Emily Bestler hardcover.
January 1, 2014
A woman's body is found in a New York hotel, her teeth missing and her features dissolved by acid. All the surfaces in the room have been cleaned, and the room has been sprayed with disinfectant to destroy DNA that may have left behind. It's a textbook murder, and Pilgrim, once head of a super-secret espionage unit, is the one who (literally) wrote the book. On the other side of the world, a Muslim jihadist, code name Saracen, synthesizes a fast-acting form of the smallpox virus. It will spread like wildfire when released across America: there's no protection against it. Pilgrim is called in to find and stop him. One of this debut novel's virtues is the sympathy screenwriter/producer Hayes (Dead Calm; Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome) shows for both his characters: Saracen must be stopped, but you understand what led him to where he is now. In his quest, Pilgrim finds the answer to the New York killing as well. VERDICT Sure, the race against time to save the world has been done before but seldom this well. Once you start this taut and muscular thriller, you won't be able to put it down. [See Prepub Alert, 11/10/13.]--David Keymer, Modesto, CA
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.