Pariah

"Pariah is a funny read but the novel is more satire than parody. In the book, Hal Knight is a disgraced comedian-turned-politician whose career implodes after a #MeToo scandal. Just as his public life appears to be over, the CIA recruits him for an unlikely task: infiltrating the authoritarian regime of a fictional country, Bolrovia, an Eastern European dictatorship whose strongman leader, Nikolai Horvatz, happens to be a huge fan of Hal’s schoolboy humour. Knight is a strong central character, driven by a search for redemption. Hal’s instincts as a comic, timing, reading a room, and knowing when to lean in or hold back make him unexpectedly effective as an intelligence asset. At times, the book is genuinely funny, sharply observed, and clever. Fesperman even weaves a Beatles track with its lyrics into a hilarious sequence, but this is not all satire; there’s also something much more menacing and brooding beneath it. Fesperman paints an unsettling picture of a society living under an authoritarian regime, and when the novel turns dark, it really lands. The regime’s security chief and Hal’s minder are both convincingly drawn, adding weight and menace to the story. Unsurprisingly for such a contemporary novel, Russian influence operations feature heavily in the background, and they’re used to good effect. In a former life, Fesperman covered Eastern Europe as a reporter, and that experience shows in the convincing atmosphere he evokes for his fictional country. I could picture it, smell it and even taste it. Chimney cakes feature heavily in this one; Google them and drool. Fesperman is a writer who is willing to take risks and try something different. A heads up for fans of spy thriller TV series, Apple TV has commissioned an eight-episode spy series titled Safe Houses based on a 2018 novel written by Dan Fesperman."