FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE YELLOW BIRDS
'Entertaining, intelligent, and effortlessly readable' Sunday Times
'A stunning novel' New York Times
'One of the best crime novels of the year' Irish Times
'A cracking mystery' Guardian
'Tense and enthralling' Daily Mail
'Taut and enjoyable' Daily Telegraph
'A kickass mystery from a superb storyteller' David Baldacci, author of The 6:20 Man
'A spellbinding and totally original thriller' Philipp Meyer, author of The Son
An early morning on a beach in Virginia. As he is taking his daily swim, Arman Bajalan - formerly an interpreter in Iraq - discovers a dead body. After surviving an assassination attempt that killed his wife and child, Arman has been given lonely sanctuary in the US. Now, sure that the murder is connected to his past, he knows he's still not safe.
Seasoned detective Catherine Wheel and her fresh-off-the-beat partner have little to go on beyond a bus ticket in the man's pocket. It leads them to Sally Ewell, a local journalist as grief-stricken as Arman by the Iraq war, who is investigating a nefarious corporation: one on the cusp of landing a multi-billion-dollar government defence contract.
As victims mount around Arman, taking the team down wrong turns and towards startling evidence, they find themselves in a race, committed to unravelling the truth and keeping Arman alive - even if it costs them everything.
A Line in the Sand is a sinuous, powerful and white-knuckle thriller, from the award-winning author of The Yellow Birds, shot through with treachery, trauma and the long tentacles of war.
Genre: Mystery
'Entertaining, intelligent, and effortlessly readable' Sunday Times
'A stunning novel' New York Times
'One of the best crime novels of the year' Irish Times
'A cracking mystery' Guardian
'Tense and enthralling' Daily Mail
'Taut and enjoyable' Daily Telegraph
'A kickass mystery from a superb storyteller' David Baldacci, author of The 6:20 Man
'A spellbinding and totally original thriller' Philipp Meyer, author of The Son
An early morning on a beach in Virginia. As he is taking his daily swim, Arman Bajalan - formerly an interpreter in Iraq - discovers a dead body. After surviving an assassination attempt that killed his wife and child, Arman has been given lonely sanctuary in the US. Now, sure that the murder is connected to his past, he knows he's still not safe.
Seasoned detective Catherine Wheel and her fresh-off-the-beat partner have little to go on beyond a bus ticket in the man's pocket. It leads them to Sally Ewell, a local journalist as grief-stricken as Arman by the Iraq war, who is investigating a nefarious corporation: one on the cusp of landing a multi-billion-dollar government defence contract.
As victims mount around Arman, taking the team down wrong turns and towards startling evidence, they find themselves in a race, committed to unravelling the truth and keeping Arman alive - even if it costs them everything.
A Line in the Sand is a sinuous, powerful and white-knuckle thriller, from the award-winning author of The Yellow Birds, shot through with treachery, trauma and the long tentacles of war.
Genre: Mystery
Praise for this book
"Powers has done it again. A Line in the Sand has it all: a kickass mystery with classic police procedural elements, originally drawn and memorable characters, but, most of all, a story with a huge heart and an underlying message that is sure to resonate widely. Enjoy the latest from a superb storyteller." - David Baldacci
"That the same man can give us The Yellow Birds, A Shout in the Ruins, and now A Line in the Sand is proof that Kevin Powers has got some serious range. This time, he's written a thriller, with a crime so big and characters so flawed, you'll be holding your breath the whole time... The book's got all the stuff you've always loved about Powers' writing: a deep and abiding understanding of what soldiers sacrifice, a thoughtful examination of the place he grew up, and prose so beautiful it'll make you weep." - Rachel Beanland
"Kevin Powers walks-the-walk and talks-the-talk in this compelling, frighteningly knowledgeable thriller. Like a pebble in a pond, the murder of a man sets the characters in a full-tilt, nonstop fight for their lives in a rippling story that could only have been written by Powers - and write it he does." - Craig Johnson
"Sure to rank among the year's best thrillers, A Line in the Sand is a tense, twisting, and thoughtful story of the intersection between grief and greed - and the human lives crushed in the middle. Kevin Powers writes with uncommon grace, delivering the rare novel that is both propulsive and contemplative, calling to mind writers as varied as Tim O'Brien and Michael Connelly." - Michael Koryta
"A riveting powerhouse of a book, A Line in the Sand pits two small town cops - and a mysterious Iraqi interpreter whose secrets have already gotten a lot of people killed - against corruption and violence at the highest levels of government. A spellbinding and totally original thriller; Kevin Powers has reinvented himself as novelist yet again." - Philipp Meyer
"That the same man can give us The Yellow Birds, A Shout in the Ruins, and now A Line in the Sand is proof that Kevin Powers has got some serious range. This time, he's written a thriller, with a crime so big and characters so flawed, you'll be holding your breath the whole time... The book's got all the stuff you've always loved about Powers' writing: a deep and abiding understanding of what soldiers sacrifice, a thoughtful examination of the place he grew up, and prose so beautiful it'll make you weep." - Rachel Beanland
"Kevin Powers walks-the-walk and talks-the-talk in this compelling, frighteningly knowledgeable thriller. Like a pebble in a pond, the murder of a man sets the characters in a full-tilt, nonstop fight for their lives in a rippling story that could only have been written by Powers - and write it he does." - Craig Johnson
"Sure to rank among the year's best thrillers, A Line in the Sand is a tense, twisting, and thoughtful story of the intersection between grief and greed - and the human lives crushed in the middle. Kevin Powers writes with uncommon grace, delivering the rare novel that is both propulsive and contemplative, calling to mind writers as varied as Tim O'Brien and Michael Connelly." - Michael Koryta
"A riveting powerhouse of a book, A Line in the Sand pits two small town cops - and a mysterious Iraqi interpreter whose secrets have already gotten a lot of people killed - against corruption and violence at the highest levels of government. A spellbinding and totally original thriller; Kevin Powers has reinvented himself as novelist yet again." - Philipp Meyer
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