The Snares

DEBUT Punjabi American lawyer Neel Chima leaves the U.S. State Department for a new, shadowy federal intelligence agency called the Freedom Center. His job: deputy director in charge of external operations. His task: fast-track a target for drone attack. He finds it in what he’s confident is a terrorist cell in Waziristan, Pakistan. But an investigative journalist discovers that the victims of the strike weren’t terrorists at all. Meanwhile, Neel is blackmailed into providing information that leads to the torturous murder of an American Muslim who also isn’t a terrorist. Some readers may find this to be a subplot that sits uncomfortably in the narrative. As pressure builds, Neel drinks too much, and his wife leaves him. At a conference in Thailand, he loses documents and lies about it. He’s subject to a security investigation, loses his clearance, and is abandoned by his mentor. Neel has always viewed himself as a token Brown man in a white man’s world, but he’s never felt more isolated than this. Eventually, he commits himself to action, but how? And against whom?