The Prince of Bagram Prison

January 7, 2008
At the start of this intelligent spy thriller from the pseudonymous Carr (the author of Flashback
and other novels under her real name, Jenny Siler), Kat Caldwell, a gutsy U.S. Army interrogator stationed at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, takes charge of Jamal, a 15-year-old Moroccan boy caught in a jihadi sweep by a British Special Forces team. Having fled a degraded existence as an orphan in Morocco, the resourceful Jamal is no terrorist, Kat decides. After Jamal escapes custody, a team of American intelligence agents, working in both an official and unofficial capacity, go in search of him. Because of their earlier relationship, Kat is recruited to help locate the boy. When she realizes that something bad will happen if she finds him, she also goes on the run. Effortlessly shifting point of view and back and forth in time, Carr (An Accidental American
) well deserves comparisons with the early John le Carré.

February 15, 2008
With several successful crime novels already published under her real name, Jenny Siler, Carr sets her second espionage thriller (after "An Accidental American") in the twisted alleys of the Middle East and Madrid. An American interrogator working with detainees swept up in the pursuit of enemy extremists defends a Moroccan teenage boy caught in the dragnet at the Bagram Airbase site in Afghanistan. Desperate for information, the Americans set him freein Madrid, where he is to report useful tidbits learned from the Arab street to his CIA handlers. The boy's fabrications eventually trigger a paroxysm of violence as the warring forces seek to protect identities and secrets. Abundant with graceful prose and gritty local color, the tale is unfortunately marred by a jagged chronology that disrupts the pace and development of the story. But the main protagonist, feisty interrogator Katherine Caldwell, is a well-drawn character whose strong loyalties balance precariously against the brutal efficiencies of the agency. In addition, Carr's purpose, as she notes in her acknowledgments, is to illuminate the vicious abuses that occurred under the reign (196199) of Moroccan King Hassan II, and American readers will gain insight into that country's oppressive Years of Lead. This worthy addition to the spy genre is recommended for large public libraries.Barbara Conaty, Falls Church, VA

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2008
Jamal, a Muslim teenager, is captured in Afghanistan and sent to Bagram Prison. He knows nothing of terrorism. He was taken at birth from his Moroccan mother, a political prisoner, and sent to a grimy orphanage in Casablanca. On leaving the orphanage, he survived by giving himself to a series of pederasts. But he must tell his interrogators something, and an innocuous lie sets off a chain reaction of murders in Britain and the Middle East. Jamal decides to disappear in Casablancas slums, and his former interrogator, Kat Caldwell, is reactivated to help find him. But Kat wonders who she is working for and what will happen to Jamal if she succeeds. The inevitable prepub comparisons of any promising new espionage writer to the work of John le Carr' and Alan Furst arent too far from the mark this time. Carr has written a fine novel dense with complex and flawed characters, a vivid sense of place, and fascinating insights into the Muslim faith. By the final page, many readers will also find in the novel a metaphor for Americas ill-conceived global war on terror.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)